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I 

DESCRIPTIONS C 



VE, 



FROM THE MOST 



Celebrate* GEpic poets?: 



HOMER, 
ARIOSTO, 

TASSO, 



//?' 



MILTON, 
VIRGIL, AND 
CAMOENS 






By M. PfGRANDMAI'SON. 



TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH 



THE SECOND EDITION. 



LONDON i 



PRINTED FOR J. BLACK LOCK, 
ROYAL- EXCHANGE, 

by J. Swan and Son, 76, Fleet Street 

1S09. 



3DES<T KM 



TNs6 

IS 1 -- 



DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE, 
CJNTO I. 



CONTENTS. 

Description of the blissful Regions, and their Inhabitants. 
—Characters of the epic Poets, Homer, Tasso, Ariosto, Mil- 
ton, Virgil, Camoens', their various talents and excellencies. 
— Description of various lesser Poets, and Beauties famed in 
History. — Assemblage of the Poets. — Homer sings. — He re- 
lates the meeting of Hector and Andromache — their affection- 
ate Adieu. Hector sallies out to meet Achilles; their dis- 
course. They fight, Hector falls. — Grief of the Trojans. — 
Tender Lamentation of Andromache. 



The Author of the Poem, oj 
which this is a translation, has extracted the 
Episodes of the following Epic Poets, respect- 
ing Love: Homer, Virgil, Ariosto, Tasso, 
Milton, Camoens. He has formed a very 
simple, but, at the same time, a pleasing and 
interesting fable, by which he has happily in- 
troduced the various descriptions of these cele- 
brated poets. This will be immediately per- 
ceived by a perusal of the translation. 

The Translator has adhered closely to the 
original; at least, as much so, as the idioms 
of the two languages would admit : he hopes 
that the translation will be found not unwor- 
thy of the original*. 



* The Translator being necessarily in the country at a 
great distance from town, when this work was in the 
press, had no opportunity of correcting the sheets. If, 
therefore, any errors should appear, he hopes, that this 
information will lead the reader to excuse them, and will 
at least, prevent them from being attributed to him. 



DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE, 



*<* 



HOMER. 

A HERE are in the shades below, delicious 
fields, where the soul of the favourite of Heaven 
retires at death, to enjoy that eternal bliss, which, 
alas ! this transitory world never can afford. Ely- 
sium is the name of this delightful abode. In this 
place, grottoes, green walks, transparent fountains, 
and enchanted groves, where the departed Shades 
repose, are surrounded with a mild, but glorious, 
lustre. Here all those mortals reside, who, for- 
merly on earth, were the enemies of vice, and the 
b2 



* DESCRIPTIONS OP LOVE. 

friends of their country, whose rare virtues, and 
excellent examples have instructed mankind, and 
merited eternal admiration. But even after 
death, in these smiling valleys, the inhabitants 
have not forgotten their favourite pursuits. 
Some display their address in wrestling, others 
in driving the lightly-moving chariot, and others 
are dancing to the sound of various instruments. 
The rest compose hymns, or distribute laurels to 
the Poet : They resign themselves to pleasure, 
to sighs, and to love. Every thing around 
breathes contentment and peace. Near this 
abode, the still Lethe, whose w r aters inspire a 
delicious forgetfulness of the vexations of life, 
glides gently on a bed of flowers. Sometimes 
also, in these delicious regions, the Shades, with 
delight, listen to the discourse of famous orators, 
and illustrious poets. 

One day, in the midst of these fresh, though 
sombre, groves, the most illustrious Shades of the 
votaries of Apollo assembled together, sur- 



DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. «> 

rounded by a numerous assembly. All Elysium 
heard with admiration their strains, which were 
worthy of the Gods. And thou, O Muse! who 
hast already recited these melodious verses, assist 
me in repeating them; assist me, while attempt- 
ing to imitate their rich and flowing harmony; 
and aid me, while endeavouring to preserve, in 
my humble strains, their spirit, their fire, and 
their noblest qualities. 

Six bards, seizing their magnificent lyres, pre- 
pare themselves to sing the love adventures of 
heroes. At their head stands Homer, the great- 
est of poets. He rules over them all, and shines 
continually in the first rank. In his song he, at 
one time, reposes under a serene sky, and dis- 
plays a countenance full of nobleness, happiness, 
and joy; at another, dark and terrible, with the 
roaring of the tempest, the noise of the thunder, 
and the flash of the lightning, he lays waste 
fields, levels fortresses, and overwhelms a whole 
people, with the chariots of war. Like his own 



6 DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. 

Jupiter, with a nod of his head, he causes the 
heavens to shake, and the earth to tremble. His 
comprehensive mind ranges through the uni- 
verse. Great, like Nature herself, he has re- 
mained glorious, during both brilliant ages and 
obscure, and like her he will remain to all future 
generations. 

Tasso accompanies him : Tasso whose en- 
chanting poem pleases by its magic; whose 
charming flights delight us, though often bor- 
rowed from Homer and Virgil: as the brilliant 
colours of the rainbow are not less beautiful, in 
being borrowed from the sun. Imagination lent 
him her pencil; and she sometimes increases the 
brilliancy of his pictures. His muse pleases, 
seduces, interests, astonishes, and ravishes us by 
turns. She is an inchantress, whom, though 
sometimes she deceives us, we adore; we feel 
ourselves dazzled; we resist her influence; but 
no sooner does she speak, than we feel ourselves 
inclined to obey. 



DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. 7 

Not far distant stood Ariosto : he who alone 
knew the art of being at the same time comic 
and sublime. He assumes every shape; no poet 
equals him in deriding the dull stupidity of grave 
countenances, or in exciting loud and general 
mirth at the recital of an entertaining adventure. 
But, further; of all writers, he has the most fruit- 
ful invention. Light, witty, insinuating, enter- 
taining, profound, he amuses himself with the 
sallies of his imagination, gives them scope, or 
restrains them at pleasure, dissevers them, or joins 
them together, and colours them, at the same time, 
with a hundred various and pleasing shades. In 
his hands, every sketch becomes brilliant. In 
his glorious enthusiasm, he alternately takes up* 
lays down, and takes up again, the lute and the 
trumpet, the fife and the lyre. 

But who is this old man, in the lines of whose 
elevated countenance a great character is ex- 
pressed? How dignified his look! how noble the 
bright expression of his face? 'Tis Milton V 'tis he 



8 DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. 

who was, in Albion, the source of noble inven- 
tion! By the sublimity of his imagination, he 
ascends on high, creates a new world, and, like a 
rapid river, mixing its waves with the depth of 
hell, and the gulphs of Chaos, he descends to the 
fathomless regions. From thence he returns 
once more to Eden, indulges himself with sweet 
repose, or cherishes the verdure, and cultivates 
the roserbush ; or gratifies himself with that bliss 
divine, connubial love, innocent as the untrodden 
earth, and pure as the heavens. In this manner, 
developing his genius, and rolling, in his poetic 
course, his majestic waves, he embraces both 
worlds. 

Near him stands Virgil: he who often, in his 
flights, ascends on high, aided by the genius of 
the bard of Hector, as the ivy supports itself by 
the oak which it embraces ; but which, though 
destitute of its strength, possesses all its beauty. 
His song abounds with that seducing charm 
which gratifies the ear, and penetrates to the 



DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. 9 

heart. Though unacquainted with the bewitch- 
ing, fairy scenes of Tasso, he knows how to in- 
spire enchanting reveries. His verses flow with 
the most affecting descriptions of love and sor- 
row. All the labyrinths of the heart are unfold- 
ed to him. Never was the song of a poet equal 
to his; never did any other draw forth such de- 
lightful tears, whether in describing the flight 
of a faithless lover, who, by ingratitude, stabs 
Dido to the heart; or whether, in pathetic strains, 
he relates the fall of Nisus on the body of his 
loved Euryalus, where his friendship only ter- 
minates with his life. He warms, he agitates, 
he forcibly constrains us ; and excites by turns, 
the sighs of love, of nature, and of friendship. 

What poet comes next? < Tis the Swan of the 
Tagus, who gloriously excels in melody of song. 
And though not always equalling the grandeur 
of his subject, yet, when in his strains, Vasco, 
ruler of the ocean, bursts courageously the boun- 
daries of the world; when the African Cape,. 



10 DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. 

shaped like a giant, and hideous sentinel of the 
farthest Ocean, whilst hearing with terror, the 
black waves dashing against the rocks, flings 
with fury the living mountain, all Pindus applaud 
his song sublimely terrible, and believe that 
they are listening to the strains of divine Homer 
himself. 

Such were the talents of these divine bards: 
their lyres were strung, and ready in their 
hands. Around them, on every side, flocked the 
various lesser poets, anxious for a seat in their 
presence. They all shone, glorious by their illus- 
trious labours. Here, nigh Saphocles, stood the 
«lder Corneille; there, Racine approaches his 
rival Euripides. Moliere, alone, seeks in vain 
for his equal. Here too, appears the engaging 
Horace, blending boldness with taste, and 
strength with gracefulness. Near them, Ana- 
creon displays the roses of spring blended with 
winter, shining on his snowy locks. Here also 
-Sappho spreads around the delirium of her fury. 



DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. 11 

The ingenious Ovid amuses himself with his 
lyre; whilst Tibullus touches a lute, watered 
with his tears. At a greater distance, their brows 
adorned with flowers, assembled those charming 
poets, the Chalieus and the Lafares, chanting 
their songs, and flashing around their wit, to the 
sound of tambourines, flutes, and guitars, and 
always exciting pleasing bursts of laughter. In 
their presence, also, were to be seen, those ingeni- 
ous poets, those Dantes and Shakespears whose 
amazing labours, mixing the greatest faults with 
the most sublime productions, threw round, in a 
darkened age, a thousand beams of light. 

Around them pressed the forest-loving Shades, 
collectihg in a circle their lightly-moving bo- 
dies; and chiefly were to be seen, those who 
had experienced the pangs of love, when they 
sojourned in this world. But though they ceased 
not to love in these delicious abodes, their tender 
affections no longer led to their destruction. 
Here Andromache sighs, and, joined in thebanda 



12 DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. 

of affection, rapturously embraces her husband 
and her son. Here the Beauties cherished by 
Calliope are to be seen ; such were Circe and 
Helen, Calypso and Penelope! Such were thou, 
O Dido! whose griefs have so often drawn tears 
from my eyes ! But what delightful assemblage 
of other beauties, is this that I behold? 'Tis 
Marphisa and Olympa, Alcine, Bradamante, 
Fleur d'Epine, and Angelica; and near them 
still are to be seen, Zerbin and Roger, and the 
seducing Medor. At a still greater distance, 
are also to be observed Olinda hand in hand 
with Sophronia, and the happy Tancred in the 
arms of the happy Herminia. 'Tis Herminia! 
yes! 'tis she herself! She whose grief so long 
accused the rigour of fate! Behold her sweet at- 
tractions, her angelic mein, the melancholic 
azure of her mildly-rolling eye, and the affecting 
charm of her mournful smile! What heart could 
remain unaffected at the sight of such beauty. 

But whither do the attractions of the enchant- 



DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. 13 

ing Armida seduce me ? A voluptuous art pre- 
sides over her charms; an enticing air of intelli- 
gence adds to her beauty. Rinaldo loves her, 
and his heart burns unceasingly in her presence. 
What charms does she employ to captivate him! 
At one time, her eye sparkles with amorous joy; 
at another she conceals it under the veil of 
modesty; sometimes, she displays an austere 
and tranquil coldness; sometimes gladness paints 
the blushing rose on her cheek, moistened with 
tears of joy. Thus, smiles and tears, fear and 
expectation, calms and transports, pain and plea- 
sure, varying her attractive graces, inspire her, 
in the eyes of her ravished admirer, with the 
charms of a hundred beauties. 

Such are the enchanting figures whose enrap- 
tured circle surrounds, with eagerness, the divine 
bards. Now Homer, chief of this glorious as- 
sembly, sounding his sonorous lyre, begins his 
song, whilst every Shade listens to his voice, 
and every eye is eagerly turned towards him. 



14: DESCRIPTIONS OP LOVE. 

Calm and silence reign throughout this immense 
assembly. Homer thus commences. 

* Patroclus had perished by the hand of Hector. 
Achilles still alive, had not yet avenged him; 
but he departs, and rushes to the walls of Troy, 
impatient to devour his prey. Hector is in the 
city, offering, with pious hands, a sacrifice 
to the gods. No sooner is he told, that his rival 
approaches, than, burning with eagerness for the 
fight, he shouts, and rushes forth. Old Priam 
and his spouse in tears vainly endeavour to stop 
him by their entreaties, and their forebodings of 
misfortune. The intrepid warrior, hurried on 
by courage, runs to the middle of the city, flies 
towards the plain, and is already at the walls ; 
when, from the top of a high tower, commanding 
a view of every surrounding object, Andro- 
mache beholds him; she eagerly flies, and stops 
him at the Scsean gate; a woman follows, car- 
rying in her bosom their son, more beautiful 
than the star of the morning. The hero per- 



DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. 15 

ceives her, turns towards her, looks on her with 
admiration, and smiles in silence. Andromache 
sighs, and embraces her Hector, and thus ad- 
dressed him: " O my dear husband! Thy cou- 
rage will prove thy destruction, and will destroy 
us all; take pity on thy son, take pity on his 
mother, whom thy death will plunge in the 
most inexpressible misery. Thou wishestto fight 
Achilles! ah ! then is there an end of thee, and 
of our love. I know, that his arm will prove thy 

destruction. Shouldst thou perish! why 

should not I previously expire! Presently de- 
spair will accompany my grief, will hurry thy 
spouse and thy son to the grave! Death (you 
well know it,) cruel death hath deprived me of 
my venerable mother, and my father was murder- 
ed on the rampart of Thebes. Achilles, in his fury, 
destroyed him with his own hand. My seven 
brothers still remained, but that merciless tiger, 
in one day, sacrificed them all to his vengeance. 
My mother, whom he brought with him to these 
mournful shores — oh! heaven, this very day; 



16 DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. 

gave up all her wealth to purchase her liberty; 
but Diana, still enraged against her, pierced 
her with arrows in her palace. I have lost all 

my friends. What do I say? I behold thee, 

ray Hector, and in thee do I find again all my 
relations! Dear husband! suffer thy soul to 
melt at my tears! Preserve a father to thy son, 
and a husband to thy wife. Behold, not far 
from that fig-tree, how easily the walls may- 
be ascended. There, the boldest of our ene- 
mies, Teucer and Ajax, Ulysse and the 
Atrides, the fierce Diomede, and the king of 
the Cretans, have thrice endeavoured to burst 
through into the city. Who knows but the 
walls may give way to their next attack? De- 
fend them, dear Hector!" " O my dear 

Andromache!" replies the husband, "you rend 
" my heart with your sorrow. But can I reflect 
" without horror, on the just reproaches of the 
" Trojans, who, if I should shun the combat, 
" would exclaim, H eis afraid of Achilles! he trem- 
" bles at his approach/ My heart would burst 



DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. 17 

d with indignation at having followed your coun- 

" sel. What! I rest inglorious within these walls! 

who have rushed into the midst of the fight, 

vays at the head of the Trojans, have 

t blood for the preservation of my coun- 

. ae day, (the idea is horrible), one day 

put an end to the glory of Troy! But 

a and Priam, and all the princes, 

r ered at once by the hand of the con- 

«' querbr, would afflict me less than if my An- 

•mache— a Greek ! (O horrible day !) a 

« Greek would carry off Andromache in tears, 

overwhelm her with shame and sorrow, 

- tuld treat her as a slave : and thou, for- 

wouldst, one day, at the Hyperian foun- 

i Argos, draw water with servile hands, 

" or woaldst be condemned to twine the distaff. 

" An Argian, in beholding this mournful sight, 

ay, Look at that illustrious princess, 

" that spouse of Hector, the chief of those war- 

M riors that cherished the valour of the fierce 

(f sons of Troy ! And thee, thou wouldst grieve ; 

c 



18 DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. 

" thy heart would sink in the most profound 
" affliction, without husband, and alone in the 
" world ! But ere I behold an inhuman con- 
" queror carry thee off in triumph, plunged in 
« grief, and calling upon me in vain, the 
u up earth shall have covered my ashes !' 

Having thus spoken, the Scamanc* 
approaches, and extends towards the 
affectionate arm ; but his son, frighte< 
nodding plumes of his helmet, throws 
terror into the breast of his nurse. The 
affected with the simple terror of the' 1 * child, 
suffered a tender smile to escape them ; but 
Hector, putting off the terrifying helmet, takes 
his son, now divested of terror, in his arms, em- 
braces him, caresses him, and covers him with 
kisses : Then, « O great Jupiter \" cries he, 
" grant, that this child, so dear to me, may sur- 
«< pass me in valour, and may, one day, by his 
" noble courage, be the defence of the Trojans ; 
" and the honour of my family ! Let the people 



DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. 19 

" say, in beholding him, proud and victorious, 
" returning home with the spoils of the van- 
" quished, He surpasses his father', he has done 
" more than him for Troy ! And let th i 
" of his happy mother overflow with joy . " 

Having repeated this prayer, he \ 
child to his mother to cherish him. Ar. 
takes him in her arms, and smiles 
smiles upon him in tears. Hector, a 
feels his heart glow with love and 
and clasping her within one arm, a 
her with the other, 

" Dear spouse !" cries he, " di: 
"boding tears. No mortal can deprive 
" existence, before Fate ordains r I 
H alone can render me up to grim Death 
" strikes, with his dart, both the good man and 
u the bad. But return to thy palace, and rejoin 
u again thy slaves. War calls forth all the brave 
" to its perils. Hector ought to guide them." 
c2 



20 DESCRIPTIONS OF LOTE. 

He said ; and now adorned the front of his hel- 
met with the shining many-coloured plume. 
Andromache, retiring, sighs, and stops, and turns 
her head to behold him once more. But Hector 
was al ready on the plain. As some proud cour- 
ser, long time separated from his companions, 
s band, and shining, with head erect, 
npetuous, he now runs and bomr.ls up- 
ass, and delights to rush into the well- 
kncwn waters: now, the fire issuing 
ils, proud and burning > 
desin his long dishevelled ha 

i the breeze, Hi s to the plain, attacks 
* marches proudly at the head 

of -flock: so Hi: or flew. But imi ■ 
the unexpected flight of the Trojans oppuscu 
him. Kvery one flie before Achilles, the en- 
raged ded on the plain, clad 
in dazzli k iU I, gold, and brass. No sooner had 
he espied Hector, than he leaps, cries out, grasps 
his lance with fury, while his buckler emitted 
dreadful gleams of light: like the lightning he 



DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. 21 

shines, like the rising of the sun from the bosom 
of the ocean, armed with his burning rays. 
Hector recognises him by his lofty mien, his 
features, and his proudly shining armour. His 
heart melts at the sight. 

" You, O Achilles ! or I, must conquer," cries 
he. " But let us appeal to Heaven, and may 
u the Gods themselves be the supreme guardians 
" of the oath which I now make. If I be con- 
" queror, you need not fear any insult ; thy arms 
" shall be sufficient trophies of my victory, and 
" I will give back thy body inviolate to Greece. 
" I swear it ! Make you also the same promise 
« to me." 

" Hector ! it is in vain that you propose any 
•* agreement betwixt us/' cries Achilles ; his eyes 
fierce, and wildly rolling. " An agreement ! who 
" ever made an agreement in our situation ! What 
" compacts do lions enter into with men ? Away 
" with such proposals ! Your blood or mine ; 



TZ DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. 

" my death or thine ; these are our only agree- 
" ments. Yes, the God of battles will soon sa- 
" tiate his thirst with the blood which I abhor. 
'* Die ! descend instantly to hell, which is ready 
" to devour you." At these words, his shaft cuts 
the air; Hector stoops, and avoids the stroke, 
an springing again to his former position, 
" Achilles ! this is the way in which your pride 
" deceives you ; you thought to frighten me by 
u this meanly deceitful attempt to surprise me ; 
" but you shall soon be convinced, that my heart 
" is a stranger to fear. You shall either pierce 
" the breast of Hector, who will now attack you, 
u or you shall receive in thine his murderous 
" lance; and may death plunge it wholly there! ,> 

He says : his shaft departs, whizzes through 
the air ; but quickly driven back from the buck- 
ler which it strikes, it falls, blunted, to the 
ground. A frightful horror now circulates through 
his whole frame ; whilst his hand seizes his sword 
with fury. As an eagle darts upon a proud dra- 



DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. 23 

gon, Hector falls upon his enemy. iEacides, 
not less bold, advances towards him. His threat- 
ning helmet, balanced by his forehead, shines 
with the gleams of a quadruple crest, and causes 
the gold of his stately plume to shake ; his large 
buckler covers and protects him : As the evening 
star, more bright than her glorious companions, 
sends forth, on every side, her sparkling influ- 
ence, the steel of Achilles now gleams with light. 
His eye measures Hector, and searches after a 
passage to his frightful javelin, the intended in- 
strument of his vengeance ; he beholds him 
wholly covered with shining brass, which his 
triumphant arm had conquered from Patrocles ; 
he sees no other place fit for his purpose than 
that where the breast is separated from the neck, 
and from whence the soul instantly issues out, 
and disappears. In this place, therefore, the he- 
ro, certain of the death of his foe, plunges, with 
fury, his murderous lance. The Phrygian falls: 
Achilles, treading his enemy under foot, ex- 
claims, « There you are now, proud Hector ! 



24 DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. 

What! thou didst not tremble when destroying 
Patroclus, and despoiling him of my armour ! 
Fool that thou wert ; thou believest, credulous 
and secure, that Achilles would remain slothful 
in his ships; he has appeared, and thoudiest; 
thou shalt be food for the ravens ; Patroclus 
shall be indebted to his friend for burial." 

The Phrygian replies: "Deign, I beseech 
thee, to accept the treasures of my afflicted re- 
lations, and suffer them to commit my remains 
to the grave. By thyself, by thy aged father, 
by thy feet which I embrace, I beseech thee, in 
dying."— " Thou expect a favour ! thou ! — Why 
does not my rage cause me instantly to devour 
thy palpitating limbs ? Go ! the famished dogs 
and the vultures await thee, and though thy fa- 
ther, to obtain that which thou beseechest, should 
present all his gold to my sight, should double, 
should treble his store, and still offer it to me, 
his offers would be vain ; he should not carry 
thy dead body to Troy. Die! The fowls of 



DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. 25 

heaven already descend to seize upon their 
prey." 

" Barbarian! I foresaw thy refusal; thy 
hard heart is inaccessible to entreaty ; but my 
prayers shall be more favourably received in 
heaven. Tremble ! for Paris awaits thee at the 
Scaean gate." Hector said ; and lamenting the 
rigour of his fate, his soul speedily takes its 
flight from his vigorous frame, which, alas ! was 
exposed to a premature dissolution. 

But Achilles, hurried on by a ferocious ven- 
geance, cries out, " Die ! what hast thou to do 
with the length of my days ? Heaven alone has 
a right to shorten them V* At these words, he 
pierces his neck with his lance ; and wreaking 
his vengeance on his foe, he strips his body, and 
pierces his feet, which he immediately affixes 
to his triumphant car ; the head of the Phrygian 
he leaves in the dust, while he mounts his car, 
and, quick as the lightning, he departs, bearing 



26 DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. 

in one hand the spoils of Hector, and, with the 
other, guiding the eagle-flight of his coursers# 
The body follows, drawn through the thick dust ; 
that forehead, those beautiful features, and hair, 
polluted, immersed in black clouds of dust, trace 
frightful furrows, while drawn through the sand. 
In this manner was Hector, in his own country, 
and under the walls of Troy, exposed to the 
most dreadful disgrace. 

His mother, placed on the ramparts, on be- 
holding this sight, shrieks, tears her veil and her 
dishevelled hair; pale, she runs, she falls, in de- 
spair. Priam — O ! what image hath tormented 
his sight ! He groans beside Hecuba; their at- 
tendants press around them ; and the unhappy 
walls reverberate with sighs, as if the spires and 
burning palaces of ancient Troy were mouldering 
away in the flames. But Priam, — he runs ; he 
darts forward, and, despising death, he attempts 
to sally forth ; but his attendants oppose him in 
his course; they stop him; he is unable to de- 



DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. c 2' t 

scend into the plain, and already he rolls in the 
mire; but he struggles, and implores all those 
whom he beholds around him. " Fall back, my 
friends ; you attempt to stop me in vain ; release 
me ; respect the grief which inspires me ; I will 
go to the barbarian ; I will embrace his knees ; 
he will see my grief, my humbled countenance, 
my white locks, my age; he will have pity on 
me ; he will be penetrated with my sorrow ; and 
has not he also a father, laden like me with the 
miseries of life, and bowing under a load of 
years ?« Alas ! this cruel son of his has pierced, 
with a merciless hand, my bosom, as well as 
that of my family. Of how many children has 
his pitiless arm deprived me ? But the death of 
them all afflicts me less than that dreadful fate 
which has awaited Hector. O, too unhappy fa- 
ther ! I have been unable to encircle within my 
arms, the son whom I love, at his departing sigh! 
His mother and I have not been able to sooth his 
troubled soul with our sighs and our tears ! Ah ! 
why does not Heaven terminate my existence ?" 



28 DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. 

Hecuba, near the king, followed by her wo- 
men, cries out, in her tears, " O my son ! my 
Hector ! thou diest, and I live ; I still breathe ; 
I suffer the odious light of day ; I, who formerly 
proud of being thy mother, saw the Trojans lift 
thee up to the heavens. Yes, Hector! they 
adored thee, and compared thee to the gods ; 
now thou art no more ! and now both Hecuba 
and Troy must fall." Thus mourned the queen 
drowned in her tears. 

Meantime, Andromache, unconscious of her 
disasters, was employed in shading the colours 
of a veil, in her palace ; her women, by the aid 
of a shining fire, prepared a warm bach for Hec- 
tor, where he might refresh his wearied limbs : 
every preparation was now finished: they await 
him ; but, alas ! they expect him in vain. Drawn 
at this moment by the implacable Achilles, he 
shall never more, on returning from the fight, 
smile upon his spouse, or rush into her arms. 
But what noise, what exclamations suddenly ap- 



DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. 29 

proach her ! The materials which she held drop 
out of her hands ; while all her senses moved, 
and her countenance pale with fear : ** Gods ! 
what do I hear ? what cries ! If it be. Follow 
me, my companions ; let us run — Ah ! my knees 
bend ; my heart beats ; it bounds, and my blood 
runs cold. O may my fear be, as formerly, in 
vain ! But I tremble — Ah ! I have seen, I know 
my Heetor ; the aspect of danger never frightens 
him : he advances before his men, he darts for- 
ward at their head. He flies to meet Achilles, 
and, perhaps, to day Achilles Ah ! my Hec- 
tor has fallen before him I" 

She exclaims, and suddenly rushes forth from 
the palace. In an ardent delirium, and the agi- 
tation of a fever, she feels her heart oppressed, 
and burning, and cold, by turns ; she flies to 
the walls, ascends the tower, rushes through 
the pressing crowd, pale, and breathless, she 
looks with an eagerly-enquiring eye to the plain, 
sees not far from the shore (O dreadful sight!) sees 



SO DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. 

her husband drawn by the enraged Achilles. She 
falls : the light forsakes her eyes ; she remains 
motionless, and seems dead ; her head, fallen on 
the earth, scatters those knots, those pearls, 
which adorn the gold of her flaxen hair, and the 
veil so dear to this unfortunate woman, the sweet 
present and pledge of wedded love ; her bro- 
thers, her parents, partaking her sorrow, press 
her in their arms, and bathe her in their tears. 
At length she returns to misfortune and to life ; 
she again beholds the light, she weeps, and ex- 
claims, 

" Hector ! O my Hector ! unfortunate hus- 
band ! under what star, at what time, and in 
what place wert thou born ? Alas ! it was with 
Priam ; and I, in my country, where my father 
cherished my tender years ! Why, alas ! did my 
father give me life ? He himself descended to 
the dark and narrow house : he lost, at the same 
time, his kingdoms and his daughter ; and thou, 
my dear Hector, thou also dost abandon me; 



DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. 27 

thou diest, and I shall never more behold that 
countenance, those features so dear to me, with- 
in our walls and deserted palaces ; thou diest, 
and thy infant, in tender years, what assistance, 
alas ! can it receive from a widow. Perhaps he 
would have been the support of thy old age ; 
thou diest, and with thee all comforts both for 
thy child and for me. 

" And if he should survive our unhappy wars, 
our country will be the prey of avaricious 
strangers. For he who has no father, is desti- 
tute of friends ; he is left alone, he is shunned, 
his conversation is disregarded ; he has no friend- 
ly bosom into which he can pour his sorrows ; 
his eyes are filled with solitary tears ; he devours 
his shame in silence ; or, instigated by hunger, 
he at length has recourse to the friends of hk 
father. Bashful, he advances to their brilliant 
table, and with a suppliant hand seizes their 
robe ; he is pitied ; but, alas ! the draught which 
is presented to him, scarcely moistens his lip, and 



32 DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. 

he is instantly disregarded : or, perhaps, some 
other children, happy in having a father, abuse 
and expel him. Go, say they, and yield to mi- 
sery. Depart from hence, and submit to thy 
fate. Go, thy father no more partakes of 
our festivities. And my son, tortured by this 
cruel treatment, will return home, to weep in the 
arms of his mother. O my son ! O what lot has 
heaven prepared for us ! Thou, whom Hector 
fondly placed upon his knees; for whom he 
oftentimes selected from the table the most de- 
licious morsels. Deprived of a father ! O Gods ! 
ye Gods ! what will be his fate ? It will only 
be misery, reproach, or death. And of what avail 
will it be to him to have a name rendered famous 
by a hundred battles ? Beloved Hector ! thou 
hast saved the ramparts of Troy ; and thou art 
no more : thy corse on the sea-shore will be the 
prey of the vulture, and ravaged by the worm : 
naked, deprived of those vestments which our 
women embroidered, and which ought still to 
cover thee — Ah ! I will commit to the flames, 



DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. 33 

those garments, now useless, which cannot now 
be even employed to shroud thee in the grave. 
The Trojans shall behold them ; these marks of 
thy glory shall at least be able still to honour 
thy memory/' 

She said : and groaned, and remained bathed 
in tears ; while her women, eagerly, and in 
emulation, partook her sorrows. 



DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE, 



CANTO II. 



CONTENTS. 

Tanso sings the loves of Rinaldo and Armida. — Without Ri- 
mddo^s aid Bouillon cannot conquer Sohjma. — Two Warriors 
■tent in search of Rinaldo: they are prepared for their expe- 
dition by a Magician: arrive in the island. — A stranger 
describes the approach to Armida 1 s palace: the Warriors 
delighted with the beautiful scenery: discover tico Syrens 
swimming in a lake: afraid of their fascinations : one sings 
the beauties of the palace, and invites them to enjoy its 
pleasures. — The Warriors discover Rinaldo reposing in the 
arms of Armida : her beauties and enchantments described. 
— Rinaldo struck iu it h the sight of the Warriors: excited 
to arms by Ubaldo : resolves to leave those scenes of enchant- 
ment and love. — Armida remonstrates tcith him: her dis- 
traction. — Rinaldo attempts to soothe her: she sivoons. — 
Rinaldo departs. — Armida restored to life: her rage, disap- 
pointment, a?id despair: returns to her palace: invokes the 
infernal spirits: her palace and enchantments destroyed. 



DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE, 

Sfc. 



T A S S O. 

x hus Homer sung ; and loud shouts of ap- 
plause immediately accompanied his sublime 
strains. Every one admired Hector, and trem- 
bled with horror at beholding him drawn in fu- 
ry by- the enraged Achilles. What astonishing 
rivals ! what sublime courage was traced by the 
brilliant imagination of the poet! And how af- 
fecting in their tears, how interesting in their 
sorrow, the old king of Troy and the tender 
Andromache ! They beheld, near the body of her 
beloved Hector, the affectionate Andromache 
groan at the remembrance of her afflicted coun- 
try ; but happy she feels Hector near to her 



38 DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. 

heart, and her past sorrows redouble her felicity. 
The whole assembly was enchanted at the af- 
fecting recital; when Tasso, suddenly striking 
the speaking lyre, fills the air with his delight- 
ful strains, and sings the amorous transports of 
Rinaldo. 

Bauillon, said he, in vain attempted to con- 
quer Solyma, having lost the aid of that illus- 
trious hero, who being, enamoured of Armida, 
worshipped his chains, in an enchanted island, 
at the farthest corner of the world. Two Chris- 
tians are appointed to visit this island, and to 
snatch Rinaldo from his beloved asylum. Ubal- 
do, the illustrious Paladin, and Charles the war- 
rior, are appointed to this office : they suddenly 
depart, ardently desirous to execute the import- 
ant enterprise. Taking those precautions autho- 
rized by heaven, the warriors receive from a 
magician a shining buckler, a book, and a 
golden rosary, the qualities of which would be 
sufficient to enable them to overcome every ob- 



DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. 39 

stacle excited by magical power. He conducts 
the heroes, who were now to traverse the boundless 
ocean, to the sea-shore. There they spied an 
unknown female, conducting through the waves 
a light bark, which approaches, and receives 
them. They depart ; and the north wind, pro- 
pitious to their wishes, wafts them over the wa- 
ters of an unruffled ocean. They at length de- 
scry the land of their desire : an island lifts its 
rising head, the curved bank of which- forms a 
double crescent ; a rock defends it against the 
mighty billows of the ocean, and breaks the 
fury of the angry waves, which, at length gen- 
tly pour themselves into a spacious harbour, and 
repose their exhausted strength in its peaceful 
bosom. They beheld near the banks, twofor- 
midable rocks, informing pilots of their approach 
to the harbour : they were crowned with green 
forests, under whose shade were to be seen a 
smiling grotto, where the twining ivy hung, 
and a pure rivulet murmured : here no anchor 
ever sunk into the earth ; no ship was ever for- 



40 DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVL. 

cibly held fast by a cable. In this place the 
unknown stranger, stopping on the tranquil wa- 
ters, addressed the two warriors. 

"View that palace, half hid by the cloud, 
crowning the summit of the hill ; there Rinaldo, 
enchained by the charms of his mistress, resigns 
to voluptuous delights his indolent days : when 
the rising sun shall shine upon that abode, you 
may then, with safety, approach it : that time 
is not far distant, you ought, therefore, to await 
it with patience. Carefully watch the first dawn- 
ing of Aurora, for any other hour would prove 
fatal to your design. Now, however, you must 
profit by the light of day, which will enable yon 
to reach the bottom of the precipice." 

Having said thus, the warriors and their guide 
separate : they anxiously leap upon the shore, 
and, travelling by a pleasant path, they at length 
arrive at the end of their journey ; while the 



DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. 41 

glorious sun, pursuing his mighty career, had not 
yet descended beneath the western wave. 

Now they look with enquiring eyes for a path 
to the palace, and they find that, in order to 
reach it, precipices must be scaled, rocks must 
be ascended, and the abyss must be braved. 
The mountain contains at once the qualities of 
every climate ; the middle and the foot are sil- 
vered over with hoar-frost; the top is covered 
with a smiling verdure ; roses enamel the borders 
of the ice : and in every portion of this magic 
abode nature has assisted the endeavours of art. 
At the foot of this hill the warriors, surrounded 
by thick groves, repose in the depth of the 
shade. 

Scarcely had the sun begun to spring from the 
east, and gild the sky with streaks of gold, when 
the warriors exclaimed, " Let us depart ;" and 
immediately the intrepid travellers pursue their ra- 
pid course. But, lo ! a hideous serpent, rearing his 



H DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. 

odiows crest, suddenly presents himself to view; 
his neck swells with rage, his eyes sparkle with 
fury, and his extended jaws are filled with deadly 
poison: he issues forth a three-headed dart, and 
shortens or extends the odious twinings of his 
form at pleasure ; while his tail, rolling in many 
circles on the sand, is collected and divided into 
circular rings. 

Charles draws his sword : " Ah \ ,f cried Ubal- 
do, « what art thou attempting? are these the 
weapons thou shouldst employ?" And immedi- 
ately he waves the golden wand ; the monster no 
sooner espied it, than, terrified at the unexpected 
sight, he retreats and disappears. Not far distant, 
they beheld a fierce lion, whose eye rolled with 
frightful rage, marching towards them: his hair 
bristles, he roars, and widely extends his awful 
jaws: he flaps with his horrid tail his sinewy 
loins; but no sooner does he perceive the shaking 
of the wand, than fear succeeds to his frightful 



DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. 43 

fury, and his flight leaves an undisturbed passage 
to the travelling warriors. 

They now advance, and pursue their journey ; 
but various other animals now suddenly appear. 
O what dreadful objects, what terrible monsters, 
what various cries, and what hideous shapes! 
There appeared to be assembled all the monsters 
which people the universe, from Atlas to the 
Nile, or roam through the Hyrcanian forests; but, 
notwithstanding their fury, these innumerable 
legions disturb not the warriors defended by the 
wand ; no sooner is it shaken, than they all take 
to flight. The triumphant pair have now no ob- 
stacles to overcome, save the ice and the snow, 
which frightful aspect presents itself on every 
side. 

But scarcely had they begun to ascend this 
steep path, when their sight was gladdened by a 
pure sky, by thin air, and serene weather at the 
top of the hill, which displayed to their view an 



44 DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. 

extensive green plain; a thousand gentle ze- 
phyrs, playing on the mossy turf, rifle the 
flowers of their odorous sweets, and with their 
balmy breath, perfume this blissful abode, from 
which they are never expelled by the rigour of 
the seasons. Here no changes, which torment 
other climates, are ever experienced ; no trouble- 
some heat or cold ; no clouds or rain; no thick 
vapours ; no summer or winter ever obscure the 
inexpressible purity of the sky. Here the mea- 
dow, never destroyed by burning heat, sends 
forth the herb of the plain ; the herb sends 
forth the flower, and from the flower issues the 
odour which it contains ; the shade of the plant 
never disappears; while a delightful palace, 
rising on the banks of an extensive lake, com- 
mands, in this smiling region, an enchanting 
view. 

Meanwhile, the warriors slowly advanced 
through the flowery paths of these delightful 
meads ; they sometimes repose themselves, tired 



DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. 45 

with their toil; and sometimes they advance: 
but now to their gladdened sight, a bubbling 
fountain presents itself, and, falling in limpid 
streams, offers to their arid lips its delightful 
freshness : it foams, flows, and by a thousand 
rivulets distributes to the gladdened fields its 
enlivening waters; till, at length, tired with 
wandering through these various paths, they all 
meet and repose themselves in an extensive 
canal, where they roll gently under the shade of 
sweet-scented arbours; the trees, kissing their 
delightful surface, admire, in the bosom of the 
lake, their reflected image, their pliant branches, 
and their sombre shades, while the azure sky 
and the flowery bush sprinkle their colours on 
the gently-moving waves; a turfy bank, sur- 
rounding the lake, invites to repose on its beau- 
teous surface. 

The warriors, on beholding these flowery 
paths, exclaim, " These, these are the perfidious 
sources of smiles and enchantment; let us re- 



46 DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. 

strain our desires ; let us avoid their ensnaring 
charms ; but chief, let us beware of those insi- 
dious songs of the nymphs, which are soon to 
appear before us/' They then advance towards 
the fruitful banks of a lake, into which the canal 
pours its waters. 

On the bank, they beheld a table, crowned 
with delicious fruits, and flowing nectar. In the 
waters, two wanton syrens are sporting; their 
charms, caressed by the admiring waves, dis- 
played their dazzling treasures, half-veiled ; the 
laughter and transports of a thoughtless gaiety- 
animated their pleasing sport: sometimes they 
sprinkled the waters on their heads ; sometimes 
they swam to a spot, where their hands seemed 
to cut out a limpid path ; the wave which sup- 
ports them on its crystal surface, gently sustains 
the charms which it embraces : at one time, 
they dive and disappear; at another, swimming 
on the surface, they move through the waters, 
in silver apparel ; till at length the fleetest, sur- 



DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. 47 

passing her companion, displays to the spectators 
her shoulders of ivory. 

The warriors contemplate these dangerous 
beauties; but already, dreading their voluptuous 
attractions* they prepare to depart : however, 
some inexpressible charm, softening their hearts, 
enchants and disarms them; they venture to 
contemplate these dangerous pictures. Now one 
of these beauteous nymphs, raising herself from 
the waters, displays to their view the ravishing 
sight of a voluptuous bosom, adorned with round 
dazzling breasts, and an enchanting form, of ala- 
baster whiteness, while the rest is beheld under 
the azure fluid. As the sparkling star of the 
morning, shining through the virgin dew, charms 
the sailor with its humid light; or as Venus, 
rising from the bosom of her native waters, so 
appeared the nymph with her fair dishevelled 
hair; the crystal fluid, intermingling with its 
tresses, flows gently, and sprinkles every portion 
*>f her angelic form. At length she turns her 



48 DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. 

eyes to the bank ; and, on beholding the war- 
riors, a feeling of shame excites her burning 
blushes ; her light hair, tied and collected toge- 
ther on her forehead, she immediately unlooses, 
and throws down to her waist; her long hair, 
with its waving tresses, envelops a beautiful 
bosom, which, under this shining veil, palpitates, 
displays itself by its motion, and adorns the 
nymph. Her charms are not less seducing when 
one disappears; for immediately another suc- 
ceeds. In this manner, the lovely nymph, hiding 
herself from the view of the strangers, under the 
veil of the waters, and her long hair, turns to- 
wards them a countenance, which seemed, at 
the same time, to smile and to blush with joy 
*nd with shame. Her enchanting smile adorned 
her blushes, and her blushes increased the charms 
of her smile. At length she employs her har- 
monious voice, whose music would charm the 
most hardened heart. 

** O fortunate mortals! bless your lot! You 



DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. 49 

have safely arrived at the happy haven of life ; 
in this blissful region is to be found every enjoy- 
ment which can call to the remembrance of mor- 
tals the happy reign of Astraea. Lay aside that 
cuirass, and those useless bucklers; our grottoes, 
our green fields, and hospitable groves display 
peaceful scenes for more endearing conquests; in 
these regions, love alone is triumphant. We will 
immediately conduct you to the abode, where 
our deity holds his brilliant court: she herself 
has long been anxious to behold you; she in- 
tends even to divide with you her empire; you 
are destined to enjoy the most enchanting de- 
lights. And now, come into the waters, and 
refresh your exhausted strength." — Thus the 
nymph throws out her perfidious allurements, 
while the other accompanies her with her ges- 
tures and her eyes; as the shepherdess, in her 
sporting play attends to the rural instrument, 
her dance is quick or slow, lascivious or modest. 
But the hearts of the warriors resist their allure- 
ments; for, when desire had excited in their bo- 
E 



50 DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. 

soms the dangerous wish of approaching such 
enchanting charms, their reason suddenly exerts 
its strength, and speedily expels voluptuous de- 
sire with disdain; they immediately retire from 
these seductive shores, while the nymphs, sur- 
prised at their sudden retreat, sunk below the 
waters, to hide the disgrace of their defeat. 

The palace which forms the illustrious resi- 
dence of Armida is composed of a vast circum- 
ference. It contains an extensive garden, which 
surpasses, in pomp and beauty, the fabulous 
groves. A thousand winding paths, artfully in- 
termingled, surround the palace with a tortuous 
rampart; the work of demons, whose infernal 
address enabled them to contrive this immense 
labyrinth. 

Now a hundred open porticoes, leading by va- 
rious routes to the palace, present themselves to 
the view of the warriors; the most extensive 
attracts their notice, and they direct their steps 






DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. 51 

to its awe-inspiring arch ; its golden double-gate 
immediately receives them, and shuts itself again 
with a dreadful noise on its silver hinges. 

Wealth had adorned these gates with the rich- 
est metals, where art was still more brilliant; the 
art of divine groups was pleased to embellish 
them ; the ear hears them breathe, the eye be- 
holds them respire. There, placed at the feet of 
Omphale, a weak and timid lover, the formidable 
Alcides sits with a distaff in his hand. Alcides, 
who supported the whole weight of the heavens, 
now twines the distaff and turns the spinning 
wheel. Love beholds him, and smiles at the 
metamorphosis. She who subdues him, lifts up 
with her rosy fingers a massy form inured to 
warfare, and smiling covers his delicate limbs 
with the skin of a lion, the terrible roughness of 
which appears to offend their softness by touch- 
ing them. 

Farther distant are beheld the waters of the 



52 DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. 

ocean, whose urgent waves roll upon the liquid 
azure plain: there a double row of vessels is ar- 
ranged, ready to dispute the empire of the world; 
their golden poops inflame the waters and the air; 
the shining bucklers sparkle with lightning, and 
all Leucate is enflamed with the fire of warfare. 
Here Antony leads on the people of Caucasus, 
.the sons of Asia, and the sable Africans; and 
there appears Octavias supported by the Ro- 
mans. One might say that the sea, disgorging 
its inhabitants, displayed upon its bosom its float- 
ing nations ; or that the mountains, leaping from 
their base, and intermingling their forms, fall 
upon, and overturn each other, so great was the 
thundering noise of these huge vessels; the 
blood runs and foams on the reddened waves, the 
wrecks, carried away by the waters and the 
winds, display, floating on all sides, shafts, masts, 
and burning cordage. The victory appears doubt- 
ful, and remains uncertain; but at length the 
Egyptians beheld their queen take to flight; 
Antony loses his empire, and has already fled. 



DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. 53 

What do I say ? Ah ! this disgrace is unworthy 
of him ! It is not his courage which is surprised 
and staggered, it is Cleopatra alone who flies, and 
who draws him after her. He is observed, his 
eye sparkling with rage, alternately groaning 
with shame, with pride, with rage and love: he 
gazes on the fleet and the bloody scene, and 
follows with his eyes the vessel containing Cleo- 
patra. At length the Nile, surrounded with the 
dead and the dying, receives him into its sacred 
bosom. There this hero, tormented with a vain 
regret, in confusion, meets death in the arms of 
his lover. 

The gates were adorned with other famous 
subjects, and the warriors a short time indulged 
themselves with beholding them; but they at 
length depart, without viewing them all, and 
enter the mazes of the deep labyrinth. As the 
meandering wave is seen to descend, in its un- 
certain course, into the sea, and suddenly again 
arise, its capricious waters play upon the banks, 



54 DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. 

and form a thousand vain circles with its incon- 
stant substance; it pursues, it flies, it chaces, it 
disappears, and the succeeding wave beholds its 
fleeting predecessor; such was this uncertain 
road to the bewildered warriors; but the holy 
book, lending them aid, enables them to unwind 
the mazes of this dreadful labyrinth. 

At length arriving at the end of the labyrinth, 
a beautiful garden presents itself to view. Here, 
obscure valleys, luminous hills, shining lakes 
displaying their liquid bosoms, and bubbling 
fountains scattering their transparent waters; with 
cedars, palm-trees, myrtles and plantains, flowery 
groves, bushes, and green turf, the productions 
of every climate and of all the seasons, of smiling 
valleys and dark caverns, delightfully display 
their freshness and their shades : but what pro- 
duced the most charming effect in this region 
was, that Art, though she produced every thing, 
remained carefully concealed ; an air of negli- 
gence veiled over the hand of cultivation, and 



DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. 55 

culture is on all sides supposed to be Nature, 
which rivalling art appears, in its turn, to limit 
her influence. The air animates the flowers, and, 
at Armida's command, conveys the flowing sap 
to the fruitful tree ; that tree which, continually- 
adorned with buds, displays at all times fruit 
growing, ripening, and ripe; the sprouting fig 
appears in the presence of another which is ripe, 
the apple-tree beholds her with rich and various- 
coloured fruits, some only green, and some bur- 
nished with gold ; the vine winds with its thou- 
sand branches round the arbour; near to the 
grape in flower, hangs another of vermillion hue, 
and, not far distant, springs the bud shining in 
gold, swelling the rich treasure with its delicious 
juice; the olive unites the spring to autumn, and 
already produces the fruits of both. On every 
hand, the birds chant their delights, and the 
-zephyr, gently sighing, rewhispers their com- 
plaints; while the majestic tree, shivering in the 
playful breeze, with the murmuring waters flow- 
ing under its shade, form concordant sounds, and 



56 DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. 

produce, day and night, an agreeable murmur, 
and a delightful concert of love. 

Here also appeared a noble bird, brilliant by 
the tones of his voice, and by the shining glories 
of his plumage: his bill is adorned with the shin- 
ing purple of Tyre; and his voice, flexible as that 
of man, breathes the language of inspiration: he 
sings, and flocks of the feathered people gather 
around and hearken to his voice; even the ze- 
phyr listens in silence to his delightful strains. 

" Behold, alas V says he, " that modest rose, as 
yet a virgin : she hides herself from the view, 
and dares not to send forth her treasure from her 
green prison : she scarcely shoots forth a timid 
bud ; then, gently throwing off the veil which 
surrounds her, half-covered and half-bare, she is 
ever the more attractive the less she is displayed ; 
but at length, losing her secret charms, she dis- 
plays in proud array all her beauty; and, begin- 
ning to fade, is already no more that blushing 



DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. 57 

flower, of which enamoured youths delighted to 
breathe the perfume, and to admire the beauty. 
So pass the fleeting joys of youth : alas ! how 
short lived. The youthful breast becomes sud- 
denly affected with love, which soon loses its 
force, and before the evening of life, completely 
disappears. When spring returns, it gives back 
to nature beauty, freshness, and verdure; but 
when life is deprived of its honours, no spring 
ever returns to restore them. Let us gather then 
this rose, the ornament of the spring of life, be- 
fore it falls shorn of its leaves, whilst we are able, 
by loving to inspire a reciprocal passion." 

He ceases, the birds applaud his ravishing 
strains, by singing and flapping their wings with 
joy. The beasts of tke field, the birds, the 
groves, the flowers, the plants, the roses, the in- 
sects, the meadows, the woods, 'the waters, and 
parterres, all burn with rapture, all unite in ex- 
pressions of gladness, all display, inspire, experi- 
ence, or enjoy the delights of love. 



.58 DESCRIPTIONS OP LOVE. 

In the midst of these strains, of that gentle 
murmur, that sweet symphony, that concert of 
nature, the two warriors still restrained their de- 
sires, and steeled their hearts against the attrac- 
tions of pleasure : their eyes penetrated the woods 
and looked around, when they seemed to behold 
a new object. They thought they beheld — 
yes — they beheld— the two lovers, Armida and 
Rinaldo, stretched out slothfully on the green 
grass, where the hero reposes in the arms of the 
beauty whom he adores. 

The lovely enchantress attracts their attention. 
Her fair tresses floating in the breeze, and care- 
lessly rolling on her neck, display ringlets of 
gold, where the zephyr loves to play; they also 
descend on her shining forehead, her burning 
•cheek, and her vermillion lips displaying desire, 
where they shine, and give themselves up to the 
enchantments of pleasure : the glance of her hu- 
mid eye shines like the ray of light glancing in 
the wave, while, full of pleasure, sparkling, and 



TAS S (.) 



m&& 




THIIurm.1- del. et Satlp. 



Warriors discover Rin aide reposing in the Arms of Arm < I 



DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. 59 

surcharged with love, her languishing eyes 
scarcely open themselves to the influence of light; 
whilst luxuriously lolling in the lap of his lover, 
the hero, reclining his manly head, eagerly gazes 
with warm desire on her inexpressible charms : he 
satiates himself, he overflows with pleasure, and 
becomes intoxicated with enjoyment : he yields 
to the voluptuous kisses of hi3 enchantress; they 
startle him, and cause his enamoured heart to 
palpitate with joy : his breath seems ready to 
forsake him, and his soul, arrived at his quivering 
lips, appears anxious to fly into the bosom of his 
lover. The warriors viewed the amorous trans- 
ports of this delighted pair, from the covert 
which concealed them. 

A crystal mirror, the sole confident of their 
loves, hung gracefully at the side of Rinaldo, 
and repeated their pleasures on its silent surface ; 
at length Armida rises, and, desirous of beholding 
herself, gives it to her lover, who, turning the 
mirror towards her, enables her to admire her 



60 DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. 

charms in its faithful bosom; but Rinaldo per- 
ceives only Armida, and her delightful charms: 
she rejoices at the sight of her ravishing features : 
she collects her scattered tresses, and binds in 
waving ringlets her flowing hair, while she here 
and there mixes them with flowers, like a spark- 
ling enamel incased in pure gold: she covers 
her breast with a light gauze, and joins the rose 
to its easy motion ; while, at length, she is covered 
by her veil, which waves slowly in the air. 
Thus adorned, she moves with more pride than 
the stately peacock, displaying the glory of his 
beauteous plumage, and appears more glorious 
than Iris, just escaped from a cloud, with her va- 
rious-coloured zone sparkling in the rays of the 
sun. 

But nothing could equal the enchanting beau- 
ty of her girdle ; it was her own workmanship, 
and who but herself could have executed such 
elegant designs? Here were 'to be seen, signifi- 
cant smiles, kisses full of voluptuousness, tran- 



! 



DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. 61 

quil denials, eager caresses, disdainful, con- 
temptuous looks, amorous fury, broken expres- 
sions, calm enjoyment, stifled sighs, tender 
alarms, the transports and the burning tears of 
love. Forming of all these objects an enchant- 
ing mixture, Armida, by means of her creative 
art, knew how to give a substance and colours 
to thought and to the soul ; mingled them slow- 
ly in a delightful combination, and these pre- 
cious beauties mixed carelessly together, shone 
in glory, suspended from her robe. 

Desirous of ending her magical enchantments, 
she prepares to fly to her solitary abode; and, 
when about to leave the warrior, she gives him a 
iiss, tender indeed, but alas ! the last. Rinaldo, 
unable to pursue her, remains alone on the scene 
of their enjoyment: he walks thoughtfully, ru- 
minating on her delightful charms; and impa- 
tiently sighs for the return of darkness, when 
Armida, leaving her beauteous but retired abode, 



V 



62 DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. 

returns to crown the passing hours with love and 
pleasure. 

But she disappeared. The two warriors now 
present themselves to the sight of Rinaldo, clad 
in burnished armour; immediately he feels his 
soul agitated with a strange sensation, and his 
heart penetrated with ardour; he awakes from 
his dream of voluptuous delight; he beholds his 
disgraceful bonds; and the generous desire of 
battle once more sparkles in his eyes. 

As a stately war-horse removed from the field 
of glory, forgetting the pride of battle for the 
enjoyments of love, becomes a voluptuous spouse, 
and in a disgraceful repose, leaps and grazes in 
the midst of the flocks; but no sooner does he 
behold the shining of the brass, and hear the 
sounding of the trumpet, than he starts from his 
sloth, he neighs loudly, and erecting his stately 
head, his capacious nostrils breathe the fury of 
warfare. Already terrible, he calls loudly for his 



DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. 63 

rivals, and bounding on the plain; he already 
believes himself flying under the master whom 
he loves, and wounding, overturning, and de- 
stroying them himself. 

So was Rinaldo affected at the sight of the 
buckler; so his soul, immersed in pleasure, 
throws off its sloth at the sight of this warlike 
array, and burns with the desire of a warrior's 
glory. Ubaldo first advances towards him, and 
holds up to his sight the mirror of the shining 
buckler: the hero beholds himself, he sees hi& 
slavery, he sees the degraded image of his fea* 
tures, he views those disgraceful ornaments with 
which his arms are covered, those habits decora- 
ted with a hundred various figures, that luxurious 
assemblage of encircling rings, of shining rubies 
and waving tresses; he beholds that sword — that 
sword which, in the heat of battle, had signalized 
his strength, and procured him glory; now at 
his side a vain and frivolous ornament, the use- 
less luxury of a degraded hero. Rinaldo wishes 



(34 DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. 

in vain to recognise himself in this odious appa- 
rel. Thus, when we escape from the arms of 
sleep, in which we have been troubled with a 
frightful dream, even after we are awake it is 
for a moment continued, and the mind is anxious 
to dispel the troublesome illusion. Rinaldo at 
length turns from the bucklei ; his sad eye is 
fixed on the ground, he wishes that he were hid 
from mortal sight, and that he were in the depths 
of the ocean, or swallowed up by the flames of 
the consuming fire. 



o 



Ubaldo now addresses him : u Both Europe 
and Asia now fight on the plains of Syria; and 
every lover of Christ and son of honour exer- 
cises his valour on this glorious theatre; thou 
alone, O son of Berthold, in a corner of the 
world, obscurely plunged in profound peace, a 
vile slave of love, languishest in thy fetters, when 
these glorious events are agitating the universe. 
What inglorious repose, what lethargic sleep 
have so long swallowed up thy heroic valour ! 



DESCRIPTIONS OP LOVE. 65 

Rinaldo alone is absent from the camp of God- 
frey ; thy general calls thee. — Awake, let us go ; 
the palm of victory is prepared, and awaits 
thee ; come, and finish the conquest of Jerusa- 
lem; come, and shake the power of the Infidel; 
let him fall, overcome, under thy strong arm." 

The hero, motionless and confounded at these 
expressions, remains some time without making 
any reply ; at length, a generous feeling taking 
possession of his soul, overcomes his shame, and 
restores him to the sentiments of honour. His 
eyes are suddenly opened, and he beholds the 
infamous luxury of his pompous ornaments; the 
hero tears them, rends them, and scatters them 
with disdain in this fatal garden; and, burning 
with ardour, displayed in his countenance, he 
has already escaped from the walls of the laby- 
rinth. 

Armida beheld the monster, who was the care- 
ful sentinel of the palace, stretched out upon the 

F 



G6 DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. 






ground ; her soul was tormented with the most 
cruel presages, and every thing around whisper- 
ed to her the loss of him she held dear : she runs, 
alarmed, and perceives him, alas! far distant, 
with hasty footsteps, leaving the palace; she en- 
deavoured to- exclaim, "Ah! cruel, perfidious 
Rinaldo ! to what dreadful solitude are you going 
to leave Armida?" But her cries, suppressed by 
her inexpressible grief, are choked in their ex- 
pression, and swell her tormented bosom: " Un- 
happy wretch !j thou art conscious that an un- 
seen power, more puissant than thy art, now op- 
poses thy love : thy efforts to stay Rinaldo are 
vain." She knew these words, these dreadful 
words, which the profane sybils of Thessaly 
pronounce on their rocks, to call up the spirits 
of the dead, who, opening the profound prison 
of the lower regions, darken the horizon, and 
make the earth to tremble : but hell, shut up, 
opens not to the operation of her charms ; she 
now, therefore, has recourse to prayers and tears; 
she wishes to try whether her cries and lamenta- 



DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. 67 

tions will not surpass the art of the enchanters. 
Towards Rinaldo, who shuns her, she flies in dis- 
traction, regardless of her honour, forgetful of 
her glory. Alas ! how soon has her insupportable 
pride disappeared? She, who, with a word, a 
look, or a motion of the head, could overturn, at 
her pleasure, the empire of love; how often has. 
her smile disguised her disdain ! Often have her 
disappointed lovers, with humble hearts, felt 
themselves happy in being allowed to breathe 
out their complaints in her presence ! O heaven, 
what a change ! Now, disdained, supplanted, be- 
trayed, she flies, bathed in tears, over rocks, 
brambles, and hoar-frost, after an ungrateful lo- 
ver, hastening from her presence ; she cries, she 
runs, exclaims, she passes over the rocks of ice ; 
and, with bleeding feet, arrives and beholds her 
perjured hero on the sea-shore, ready to embark. 
She now exclaims, "Stop, perfidious lover ! im- 
molate thy victim ! Alas ! behold me prepared ; 
pierce, tear this heart, which has sworn to be 
faithful 5 this heart, the half of which is already 



68 DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. 

prepared to fly with you J Stop, Rinaldo; but do 
not believe that I, though now unfortunate, am 
desirous to implore an amorous kiss. No, pre- 
serve your embraces for another: I object not; 
but at least lend an ear to my parting wish. Why, 
alas ! should you be afraid to listen to me ? you 
have been able to fly from me; do you wish also 
to be deaf to my complaint V 

Ubaldo now spoke. "We must stop; Armida , 
approaches, Rinaldo; and you ought to hear her. 
She will assail you with her tender entreaties, 
her affecting lamentation, and her bitter tears ; 
if these should be unable to seduce you, what 
mortal will be able to equal you ? It is in these 
combats only that the truly virtuous soul over- 
comes the desires of the body, and purifies itself 
in the furnace of temptation." 



Rinaldo stops ; and Armida approaches, drown- I 
ed in tears, breathless, and rendered more in- I 
teresting by her sorrow. She raises her eyes, 



DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. 69 

and fixes them on those of him whom she adores; 
and, from fear or contempt, remains silent. Ri- 
naldo is also silent; and, from a respect for his 
duty, scarcely ventures to look upon her with a 
passing regard . 

Notwithstanding her despair, the cunning en- 
chantress, employing still her address and her 
art, inclines the hero, by tender sighs and timid 
groans, to listen to her voice. As a charming 
singer artfully modulates the hearts of the hear- 
ers to the tone of his delightful harmony, by 
delightful sounds, the precursors of his song, she, 
at length, expressing the grief which assailed her, 
addressed Rinaldo thus : " Do not think, barba- 
rian, that you behold me, a suppliant lover, em- 
bracing your knees; the expressions of lover 
and beloved are for us for ever lost; you hold 
them in detestation; but if even the smallest re- 
membrance of our love excite thy vexation, at 
least hearken with the ear of an enemy to my 
last lamentations; in hearing me, you will at 



70 DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. 

least be unable to contemn me ; you will be ena- 
bled, in granting me this last favour, to shut your 
ears, if you desire it, to my request. 

" If you hate me, if you must abhor me, che- 
rish the sentiment necessary to your heart; since 
you believe it just, it, no doubt, must be so. I do 
not complain, I submit to it; but allow me to in- 
form you, I was your enemy as well as that of 
your religion; I detested your worship, your 
Christians, and yourself. Yes, yourself : I believed, 
in my determined hatred, that my duty com- 
manded me to be thy enemy; I wished to immo- 
late thee, and I vowed thy destruction ; ready to 
strike the fatal blow, I rushed, (O heavens!) into 
thy arms; I lead thee to distant climates, to the 
regions of a new world, to the inaccessible sum- 
mits of a barren rock ; for thee, my art was ac- 
tively engaged; I at length erect a palace to 
please thee ; then seducing thee, I accomplished 
thy disgrace; what punishment would be suffici- 
ent to expiate this odious crime ? To love thee, to 



DESCRIPTIONS Of LOVE. 71 

please thee, O heaven! to enflame thee with 
love ; to renounce for thee the duties of an au- 
stere morality ; besides my throne, my country, 
my religion, my innocence; to renounce, in 
loving thee, twenty various sceptres, rich in thee, 
in the possession of thy heart, which, to me was 
the whole universe; and giving myself up to 
thy enjoyment, that I might participate with 
thee the choicest delights of love : O what trea- 
son, what odious crime! Armida, an idolator, 
hath charmed thy sight. Revenge thyself; trans- 
port to distant climes thy ardent courage; go, 
procure the freedom of the seas, and fly far from 
an unhappy wretch; destroy my throne, my 
worship, and my faith. My worship! had I 
ever any idol but thee? It is to thee alone, thou 
ungrateful barbarian! that my heart offers up 
adoration; it is thee, whom love, in this bosom, 
has deified; thee, for whom I sacrificed every 
thing dear to me; thee, for whom I resigned 
my honour, my sceptre, my father, and my 
God. 



72 DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. 

" However, I venture to hope that you will 
grant me my last request. Suffer me to serve 
thee, and let me be thy prisoner ; let me at least 
accompany thee, in thy mournful departure; the 
conqueror ought to chain his captives to his car; 
the robber of the forest leaves not his prey be- 
hind him; allow then the army under thy com- 
mand to behold me : add this triumph to all the 
rest, and display to the eyes of the Christians, 
Armida in captivity. And wherefore should I 
retain on my forehead those scented locks, 
which my lover detests ? For thee have I adorn- 
ed them ; for thee have they been rendered dear 
to me. As I am a slave, every thing about me 
should announce my condition. If thou has- 
tenest to the battle, I will arrange myself 
under thy standard. Come then, let us destroy 
armies, let us pierce the strong phalanx, let 
us hasten to spill plenteously the blood of the 
infidels. Behold thy buckler, thy darts, thy 
javelins; look, look at thy foaming coursers 
guided by my hand; I am thy assistant, and my 



DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. 73 

heart is thy defence; this heart has been thy vic- 
tim, and it will be thy support; that javelin, 
which arrives at thine, must first pierce through 
me ; and perhaps the voice of pity will be heard 
on beholding a female in despair. Yes, perhaps 
this heart which has devoted itself to thee, will 
find others less barbarous than thine. But what 
do I say? Alas! ought I now to vaunt of these 

features, which thy pride despises " Here 

her voice fails her, and she remains drowned in 
tears and sighs; her hand endeavours to take 
hold of that of Rinaldo; the hero falls back; he 
combats Armida, and all her charms; and he 
triumphs, while her eyes in vain remain immer- 
sed in tears. 

But if he has broken the chains of a disgrace- 
ful love, his heart has not been insensible to the 
more chaste emotions of pity; already has this 
feeling of tenderness excited his emotion; but 
that magnanimous virtue which fills his bosom, 






74 DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. 

conceals his sensibility under a calm and serene 
countenance. 

" Armida," says he, * how much do I lament 
thy sufferings! Why am I unable to calm the 
agitation of your bosom, to expel the love which 
I behold there triumphant ? Alas ! you know not 
how much it has cost me to stifle it ! My heart 
hates thee not, although I have found it necessa- 
ry to leave thee. Thou art not my captive, far 
less my slave ; and thou wilt not, I trust, eagerly 
display thyself in the presence of my foes; thy 
heart, ever in extremes, hath formerly felt too 
much hatred, and now is by far too much tor- 
mented with love. But these misfortunes, which 
are hurtful only to yourself, are excused by your 
sex, your age, and your religion ; and if I ven- 
tured to reproach you on account of them, what 
right should I have to do so ? Have I been pos- 
sessed of more prudence ? And has my heart 
been more virtuous than thine ? Depart, I pray 
you; and let my fortune be propitious or adverse, 



DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. 75 

the remembrance of thee will ever be agreeable 
to me j and if honour will one day suffer me to be 
united to you, I promise, I promise to be thine. It 
is time, Armida, that our inclinations were sub- 
dued ; let us, therefore, mutually put an end to 
our disgrace; and may our mournful remem- 
brance of past joys remain buried in oblivion ! 
May Europe, for my glory, remain ever ignorant 
of an attachment, which will always disgrace 
me ! Even you, I trust, will endeavour to con- 
ceal it, as it tarnishes your virtue, your rank, 
and your beauty. Adieu ! I am going to leave 
you ; I must depart. Adieu ! you must not, can- 
not accompany me. Live in peace, and change 
your resolution. Ah! seek after happiness by 
some other road. Wisdom is the path which 
leads to this uncommon bliss, from which, alas ! 
love only leads us astray." 

He spoke; while Armida, already rolling her 
haggard eyes, glanced the most frightful indig- 
nation, but looked upon him in silence; till at 



76 DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. 

length, leaving her silent rage, she addressed 
him in the following burst of indignation : 

" And dost thou pretend to be sprung from 
the loins of heroes? that the beauteous Sophia 
bore thee ? Monster ! 'tis false ; the craggy Cauca- 
sus has reared thee among his solitary rocks, where 
thou hast been nourished by the milk of bears 
and panthers ; and the sea, enraged, that sea from 
which thou hast sprung, roaring with horror, has 
thrown thee upon its shore ; and what do I ex- 
pect from him? Why should I deceive myself ? 
Hath the ungrateful wretch displayed any desire 
to comfort or pity me ? hath he turned pale with 
sorrow? hath his unbending heart condescended 
to breathe one accent of regret, or one sigh of 
commiseration ? What have I said ? How, alas ! 
when he forsakes me, he wishes to excuse him- 
self! What do I say? he generously pardons me, 
like a benevolent conqueror, for my improper 
attachment! O hear, and admire his eloquent 
discourse. And thou, thou, O Mahomet! who 



DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. 77 

seest, who beholdest him, thou destroyest him 
not, and yet thou demolishest our temples. 
Ungrateful wretch! I will not longer detain 
thee; follow thy warriors, and accompany 
them to gather I know not what kind of 
laurels; go, cruel author of all my follies, and 
mayest thou experience that peace in which I 
will remain. Go, tiger, I shall die ! — but after 
my departure, my ghost shall every where ac- 
company you, shall arm itself with serpents, 
torches, and swords, which, day and night, as 
well as in your dreams, shall dance before your 
eyes, and appear terrible in your sight; and a 
thousand dreadful torments shall tear thy perju- 
red soul. Or, if it happen that you escape from 
the dangers of the ocean, you shall arrive at 
Solyma, the vile refuse of shipwrecks; there, 
thrown down among the heaps of the dead and 
the dying, pierced, agitated, and gnawed with 
vain regret, in your last moments you shall call 
upon Armida: when it is too late, you will be de- 
sirous of invoking her, and I will hear thee, O 



78 DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. 

perfidious wretch, and ray heart.. .." Grief chokes 
her utterance; her senses now forsake her; her 
tongue remains motionless, and icy drops stand 
upon her brow. 

Armida ! thy beautiful eyes perceive not the 
light of day; and unpitying fate hath refused to 
thy love the only solace to thy dreadful grief! 
Alas! open thine eyes; look upon the enemy 
who causes thy sorrow. And thou wilt behold 
his eyes drowned in tears : ah ! how should his 
sighs and his sorrow soften thy griefs, if thou 
couldst only perceive them! He laments thy 
sorrow ; he groans, and, about to leave thee, he 
gives to thy grief all that he has to offer; and 
his last adieu, on beholding thy distress, is full of 
pity, perhaps of tenderness ! 

What, O Heaven! shall Rinaldo do? Shall 
he forsake Armida in the arms of death without 
affording her aid? Ought he to do so? No; com- 
passion, and even honour forbid. But necessity, 



DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. 79 

that dreadful and supreme law, constrains him to 
depart; and, taking his flight, the flexile sail al- 
ready swells its golden wings; the wind now 
impels the bark ; and, at the same time, scatters 
carelessly the flowing tresses of his conductress. 
The hero, while departing, looks still towards this 
spot, but at length, the shore disappears from his 
sight. 

Armida gradually returns to life, and opens, 
while groaning, her feeble eye-lids; she once 
more beholds the fields, the deserted shore, the 
immense horizon, and the boundless ocean; her 
eyes long seek after her faithless lover among 
the waves; but being unable to behold him, 
" He is gone," says she; "he has been willing 
to leave me dying on this spot; he has not even 
deigned to postpone, for a moment, his depart- 
ure; he hath left me, dying, disgraced, and in- 
jured; he hath left me; I complain, and I am 
not yet avenged ! I weep, and have no other re- 
source to gratify my rage. Vengeance ! Ah ! 



80 DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. 

should heaven snatch him from my wrath; 
should the dark abyss swallow him up ; in heaven 
or in hell, I shall seize upon my victim Hea- 
ven ! I see himself: O surprise ! O fury ! I seize 
him, I hold him fast, I tear his heart; his blood 

flows Let us go let me here quench my 

thirst; I wish to terrify the world with my 



" What do I say ? O heaven, where am I ? and 
what have I ventured to expect? Where has my 
feeble reason been wandering? Ah! unhappy 
wretch ! it was only when he bore thy fetters 
that thou couldst make him feel thy hatred ; then, 
indeed, it would have been effectual, and highly 
would he have deserved it; but now, alas! what 
can this hatred avail ! Alas! because the ungrate- 
ful wretch hath contemned my charms, because 
he hath dared to insult, have I no means of ven- 
geance? O beauty! which he hath outraged! 
come, and gratify my vengeance! Yes; I will 
be the price, the conquest of that arm, which 



DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. 81 

will destroy the execrable wretch. O all ye who 
will venture to execute such a noble design, I 
offer you my hand, my sceptre, my treasures ! 
Beauty ! thou should st now serve to gratify my 
rage, or thou hast never been to me a gift of nature. 
Horrible gift ! I hate thy presence, the light of 
day, war, and glory, my sceptre, and love ! O 
vengeance ! live thou alone, for the future, in my 
heart \" Thus Armida, a prey to the rage which 
assailed her, breathed her fury in broken ac- 
cents; she at length tears herself away from a 
scene, to her, full of horror, and flies to the pa- 
lace foaming with rage,ner countenance inflamed, 
and her eye sparkling with fury. 

There, from the bottomless regions, she invokes 
those three hundred deities, those dark spirits, 
kings of barbarous chaos, and the gloomy pit. 
Immediately the sun is clothed in darkness and 
blood; night covers the heavens; the winds, let 
loose, rush against the rocks, and loosen their 
foundations; the depths of hell enraged, open 
G 



82 DESCRIPTIONS OP LOVE. 






their mouths, and complain, and pour fopth a 
hideous nation of unclean monsters: they are 
observed, surrounding this magic abode, hissing, 
groaning, howling, and roaring by turns; a 
thick vapour, darker than night, spreads over, 
and conceals the walk of the palace ; a thousand 
livid flashes of rushing lightning burst the dou- 
ble furrows of its gloom; the darkness at length 
passes away; and the sun, from his burning car, 
once more sheds around a pale though cheering 
light; the air, though clearer, is not yet serene, 
but the palace has totally disappeared ; monsters, 
nymphs, palace, woods, rivers, all have disap- 
peared, and left no trace behind them. As, by 
the influence of the sun, and the breath of the 
south wind, the floating clouds of humid vapours, 
which ascended to the air to form tempests, are 
dispersed at a distance, and fly over our heads: 
or, as vanishes a light phantom, conjured up by 
the dream of the sick, so there remains, on this 
spot, only a chilling gloom, and that eternal hor- 
ror which nature impressed on its surface. 



DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. 



CANTO III. 



CONTENTS. 

A riosto sings of the warfares of Charles. — Two Saracens, bro- 
thers, Medor and Cloridan, resolve to follow their Prince to 
Lutecia : reach the camp of the Infidels. — Medor laments 
the fate of his sovereign : he and Cloridan resolve to sacrifice 
their lives in the search of their fallen Prince : set out for 
the Christian camp. — Cloridan kills Alpheus, a magician, 
and several others. — Medor also rushes on to revenge the 
death of his Prince. — The Saracens approach the Emperor's 
tent, but are prevented by the guards: they discover the bo- 
dy of their Prince, which they carry off: are met by a Scottish 
warrior.— Cloridan misses Medor : discovers him surrounded 
by his foes : kills several of them, and is seized by Zerbin, 
who spares his life; but is wounded by another warrior.— 
Cloridan revenges the supposed death of his brother, and falls, 
covered with wounds. — Angelica restores Medor to life by 
the application of herbs: he is carried to a shepherd's cot. 
— Angelica watches by his side. — Medor falls in love icith 
Angelica: she partakes of the same passion. — Medor reco- 
vers : they are united, and Medor partakes of her throne.- 
Rolando visits the scenery around the shepherd's retreat: 
struck with jealousy on seeing the initials of Angelica and 
Medor cut on the trees : ranges the woods icith contending 
passions : reaches the shepherd's retreat : is tormented with . 
the sight of inscriptions indicating the loves of Angelica 
and Medor. — The shepherd shows the bracelet which Rolando r 
had formerly given to Angelica as a pledge of his affection. 
— Rolundo much distressed with the shepherd's relation: sets ! 
out to the forest in a ft of phrensy and distraction : ex- 
presses his sorrow : is bereft of his reason : tears up the trees 
by their roots: at the noise, the shepherds, the labourers, the A 
wine-dressers, and herdsmen rush forth to behold tht ■ 
of such commotion. 



DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE, 

Sfc. 



ARIOSTO. 



Xasso, inspired by a delightful enthusiasm, 
charmed every hearer with his affecting story: 
that simple and sublime picture of nature, 
which Homer so beautifully drew, was not here 
to be observed : with Tasso, nature, love, war- 
riors, lovers, all assume an air of enchantment. 
His imagination, by displaying its magic, makes 
up for the want of sublimity of genius, pleasure 
succeeding to the interesting recital of a chaste 
affection, pleases in its turn: Armida herself ap- 



86 DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. 

plauds his charming strains; Armida, now repos- 
ing in the arms of the warrior whom she loves; 
no more does she feel resentment for her former 
sorrows; love, tender love has totally effaced 
them. 



Let us always avoid these barbarous caprices. 
O Love ! if we knew what torments thou pre- 
parest for thy votaries, who would yield to thy 
enticing softness ? Let me rather adore thy chaste 
and charming sister, who, without ever wound- 
ing, pleases and delights ; who warms without 
consuming, who enlightens without dazzling, 
who affects without rending the heart! What! 
shall I neglect to celebrate thee in my song, and 
repay thy favours with an ungrateful silence ? 
No; my heart, penetrated with gratitude, is 
anxious to record the bliss of thy delightful in- 
fluence ; and Ariosto offers me a happy oppor- 
tunity :— Ariosto, O ! thou admirable Proteus of i 
the Muses, in the knowledge of thy art equal 
to Aristeus, I have beheld, thee by turns, an un- 



DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. 87 

tamable lion, a river, a rivulet, a serpent, a 
flame, an eagle, or a butterfly. A hundred times 
hast thou escaped me, hast thou disappeared, 
while I have been unable to seize thee in thy 
metamorphosis; but, at least, I shall be able to 
introduce into my song, in a skilful manner, the 
most noble traits of thy genius. 

Already to hear thy interesting tale, the whole 
audience crowd eagerly around thee. Thy voice 
breathes forth affecting strains, and thus was thy 
song: ''Charles, by his courage, had delivered 
the walls of Lutecia, and still wished to try the 
fate of battles, and destroy Agramant, the fierce 
monarch who had lately besieged that proud 
city; while filled with rage, and anxious to de- 
stroy him, Charles even besieged his army in 
the camp/' 

When two Saracens, of ignoble birth, whose 
parents lived in Ptolemais, by their tender friend- 
ship, deserve to be celebrated to all future gene- 



88 DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. 

rations. The one was denominated Medor, the 
other Cloridan. These brothers, attached to 
their prince by an ardent zeal, determined to 
follow him to Lutecia, through the perils of the 
ocean, and equally to partake of his good and 
bad fortune. Cloridan had been always intrepid 
in the chace, and joined to uncommon swiftness 
the most manly vigour. Medor was a flower 
newly blown, and displayed the beauty of the 
lily with the freshness of the rose. No warrior 
among the Saracens possessed equally noble 
qualities: his eye, blacker than the sloe, sparkled 
with fire, and his golden locks shaded a neck of 
ivory. Such was his beauty, that it seemed as if 
a heavenly seraphim had descended on the earth 
to mock the forms of ordinary mortals. 

Night came on; and the brothers, in the camp 
of the infidels, were stationed sentinels on the 
same spot. The moon now slowly moved 
through the highest regions of heaven. Medor, 
abandoned to the most piercing grief, laments 



DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. 89 

the fate of his unhappy sovereign, now deprived 
of supreme honours. 

" O my dear Cloridan \" says he ; " my prince 
has fallen under the sword of the foe, and his 
body, deprived of burial, will soon become the 
prey of the vulture ! I will depart; I will search 
among the dead and the spoil, and endeavour to 
procure his dear remains; and perhaps heaven 
may enable me to open the hospitable tomb for 
the reception of his sacred dust. Every one, in 
the Christian camp, now enjoys repose. I wish 
to explore it, and now hasten thither. Remain 
thou, my dear friend, within these ramparts, and 
if heaven unkindly deprive me, by death, of the 
honour at which I aim, let thy voice one day 
proclaim the height of my affection for the ho- 
nour of my king." 

Cloridan was unable to believe the voice which 
he heard : he was astonished : he admired in a 
youth of green years, such a symptom of fidelity, 



90 DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. 

honour, and love; and, though Medor was dear 
to his heart, he tries to moderate the generous 
ardour of his soul; but his efforts are fruitless; 
his remonstrances are vain. At length, perceiv- 
ing the impossibility of turning him from his 
purpose, 

** Well then," says Cloridan, " I can also seek 
that honourable death, to which thou aspirest. 
O my friend, without thee, what would life be to 
me? I soon should die of grief. Ah! let us 
rather immediately depart, and let me perish, 
.fighting by thy side." 

The two warriors, now boiling with rage, re- 
quest that guards may be placed on their posts : 
they pass the ramparts and the ditch, and the 
Christian camp appears to their view. Every 
fire is extinguished, and the soldiers, surrounded 
by colours and arms, enjoy soft repose : every 
one sleeps, intoxicated with the fumes of wine. 
Cloridan now addresses these words to Medor: 



DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. 91 

«« An opportunity, my friend, now offers itself, 
and is favourable to us. These soldiers have 
deprived my prince of existence, I shall now 
avenge his death. To make certain of success, 
watch thou with a careful eye, all around us: 
this steel will prepare a wide passage for thee." 

With these words he rushes, with an ardent 
courage, against Alpheus, well skilled in the lore 
of ancient Magus, Hippocrates, and Hermes. 
This soothsayer had long predicted, that he 
should reach an extreme old age ; but, sad pre- 
sage of the weakness of his art, the glancing 
steel is plunged into his bosom ! Cloridan then 
strikes Montcaldo and Palide, and five others are 
soon pierced with his murderous sword : he stabs 
Grillon, the drunkard, leaning on a cask, and from 
his body, pierced with the sword, flow out, toge- 
ther with his life, both wine and blood, which 
redden the earth. 

Not far distant, fall Andropos and Conrard, 



92 DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. 

who, employed in a game of chance, had long 
balanced the victory, and were each appealing 
to the decision of the dice. Happy if, while 
waiting the return of the sun, they had been 
able to prolong their watch till the approach of 
day. As a dreadful lion, in a sheepfold, render- 
ed fierce by hunger, far distant from the sight of 
the sleeping shepherd, surprises, seizes, tears, and 
rends the flock; so Cloridan, inspired with indis- 
criminating rage, makes a horrid carnage of the 
reposing Christians. 

Medor, disdaining an ignoble warfare, reserves 
his sword for a more honourable strife : he flies 
to Count Albert who, reposed himself under his 
tent, on the breast of an enchanting beauty. 
He sees their arms so closely entwined, that the 
thin air can scarcely pass betwixt them: with 
one stroke of his sword he made their heads 
dance on the ground. O happy couple ! favour- 
ed in your destruction! your souls, imitating the 
sweet union of your bodies, fly together to the 



DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. 93 

abodes of the blessed! Medor next destroys 
Ardalic and his brother: the count of the faith- 
ful Flemings was their father ; and Charles, after 
a combat which covered them with glory, re- 
warding their courage with noble rank, suffered 
them to adorn their arms with the illustrious 
flower-de-luce. 

The Saracens, hurried along by their rage, 
now approached the emperor's tent, and beheld 
the faithful troop of the Paladins, watchfully 
surrounding it, and preventing their approach. 
Prudence now succeeded to their ardent courage, 
and they sheathed their gory swords; they cau- 
tiously entered a by-path, and, flying silently in 
the shade, reached the plain, which was every 
where covered with broken bucklers, cuirasses, 
chariots, and dead bodies; all doomed by inflex- 
ible fate to destruction, whether rich or poor, 
monarch or plebeian: the disorder, the blood, 
the horrid carnage, and darkness of the night 
would have rendered all the efforts of this generous 



94 DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. 

pair, in searching for the stretched corpse of their 
prince, unavailing, had not the star with the sil- 
ver disk, to gratify Medor, thrown over his cloudy 
covering, and lent him his cheering light; he 
brightens up the fields with his pale influence : 
but, suddenly, his brightest rays sparkle on the 
body of the hero stretched out on the plain. 
Medor recognizes the colour of his arms: he 
leaps towards him, kisses him in tears, lifts him 
from the ground, and, with the aid of Cloridan, 
bears off to a distance the much-loved burden; 
when Zerbin, the chief of a troop of Scottish 
heroes, whose valour was never lulled asleep, 
returning from the defeat of a troop of his ene- 
mies, met the two heroes in this murderous plain. 
No sooner did he perceive the young warriors, 
than he runs, flies, and exclaims, " Stop, both of 
you. Of what rank, what country are you? 
What is your business here ? Whither are you 
going ?" The two Saracens retreat without a 
reply, and arrive at a neighbouring wood ; but 



DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. 95 

the troop has already surrounded its avenues, 
and taken possession of the roads. 

This wood is covered with a confused assem 
blage of brambles, bushes, and thickets. The 
traces of a path, now covered, appear : Cloridan 
now throws off his burden, and believing that 
Medor accompanies or follows him, he flies, and 
escapes by this obscure path; but Medor, defend- 
ing the much-loved body of his king, defies 
the fury of the Scottish warriors : at one time 
retires, still bearing his precious burden, be- 
hind an oak, a linden-tree, or an elm; and, at 
another, defying the whole strength of his foes, 
he covers and defends his precious load. Thus, 
when the hunter ventures to attack the den of 
the bear, the mother, to defend her young, darts 
courageously on the javelins and spears, and 
roars alternately with rage and tenderness; now 
rolls her flashing eyes with fury, and destroys 
and tears her prey with her bloody claws ; and 
now, restraining her half-stifled rage, she looks 



96 DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. 

upon her offspring, and trembles for their 
safety. 

Cloridan, who now no more feared the foe, 
stopt, and looked around in vain for his friend : 
he was unable to observe him : he stops, he listens, 
he calls him, he retraces his steps, and views 
every spot, which he had already passed : O Me- 
dor ! where can he see thee ? how can he assist 
thee ? He eagerly searches for him through the 
immense forest, and every-vvhere meets with the 
profoundest silence : But lo ! he hears the noise 
of coursers, of warriors— A cry ! O Heaven ! O 
horror! — he discovers Medor surrounded with < 
his cruel foes, who, notwithstanding all his efforts, 
is seized by them, and dragged away. O God ! li 
what shall he do ? how shall he, by his aid, 
snatch him from that destruction which now 
awaits him? Ought he to dart upon the nume- 
rous foe, and terminate his existence by a glori- 
ous death ? Yes ! it must be so ; it is his desire ; j 
but before the hostile steel shall deprive him of 






DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. 97 

life, be wishes his death to cost his enemies dear. 
He places on his bow a sharp-pointed arrow : it 
darts, whizzing through the air, and, thirsty 
for blood, strikes a Scottish warrior, whose fore- 
head being pierced, exclaims, while the ar- 
row is dyed in his gore. The troop asto- 
nished, look around; while immediately, issuing 
from the bow, a new arrow pierces another fee, 
not far distant from the hero, who, under the 
wound already received, was now struggling with 
death : he runs, enquiring of his warlike friends, 
what hand had sent forth the murderous arrow ; 
when he himself is struck with another, the shaft 
of which enters his throat, and deprives him of 
utterance. Zerbin could no longer restrain his 
fury, but immediately darts towards Medor, and 
exclaims, "Thou shalt die \" and, seizing him by 
his golden hair, he drags him to destruction ; but 
scarcely had he beheld the youth full of charms, 
than pity seized him, and he restrained the in- 
tended stroke : Medor extends towards him his 
open arms, and implores his pity. 
H 



98 DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. 

" O thou," says he, " whoever thou art ! I 
beseech thee, by the God whom thou servest, to 
suffer me, before I die, to give to my king the 
honourable rites of sepulture: then, deprive 
me of existence ; I wish from thee, nothing more 
than to be allowed to bury my king." Thus he 
spake, and Zerbin, charmed with his graceful- j 
ness, and affected with his request, granted him 
his demand ; when a warrior, in defiance of the 
generous chief, darts forward, and, inspired by 
an odious rage, plunges his lance into the breast 
of Medor. 

Cloridan, who beheld him, immediately ex- i 
claims and rushes forth; he conceals himself no 
more, but falls upon the enemy, and chief that 
tiger whose rage had destroyed iiis friend : him I 
alone he looks for, on him he imprecates ven- 
geance; in vain the troop of the foe collect 
themselves together, and attack him, he. repulses 
them; his ardour increases, and he at length \ 
reaches the murderer of his friend; wielding in 



DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. 99 

fury his sword, the glancing of which has alrea- 
dy foretold his destruction : he plunges it, resist- 
less, in his half-opened mouth ; and now, avenged 
of the barbarous wretch, and, still breathing, he 
throws himself covered with wounds on the body 
of Medor, and presses him in his arms, while his 
soul takes flight with his life, during his repose 
on the breast of his friend. 

No sooner had he expired, than the soldiers, 
leaving their companions, retired, and disappear- 
ed in the neighbouring forest, while Medor and 
Cloridan are stretched on the plain: Cloridan 
was no more, and Medor would soon have de- 
scended to the shades of death, had not aid, un- 
expected, approached him. 

Fate led towards this spot a beauteous stran- 
ger, who appeared in the disguise of a simple 
shepherdess, but whose rare beauty and majestic 
mien displayed the august grandeur of her birth. 
This enchanting object was the proud Angelica : 



100 DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. 

she was flying from the tyrannical empire of 
love, and could not reflect without indignation 
on the pretensions of Rolando to rule over her 
heart; but no sooner had Medor, ready to perish, 
appeared to the sight of Angelica, than her 
heart, affected, felt for the first time the soft emo- 
tion of pity. She wished to save him, and, having 
studied the healing virtues of various plants, she 
runs to the neighbouring field, and collects some 
flowers, whose qualities dispel the most danger- 
ous ills; she beheld a shepherd not far distant, 
travelling on a faithful courser; she, amiable 
suppliant, stops him in his progress, and flies to 
Medor, already menaced with destruction : the 
plants, squeezed in her hands, and ground be- 
tween two stones, water with their unctuous juice 
his wound and his joints, and immediately re- 
called lnm to life. And now, placing him on 
the courser of the shepherd, the queen supports 
him with her alabaster arms, while the generous 
old man assists her, conducts them, and intro- 
duces them to his humble dwelling. 



DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. 101 

Few were the ornaments of this rustic abode ; 
but Medor was there ; and the happy Angelica 
preferred to all the gold of the palaces which she 
had inhabited, the humble roof she now adorned, 
where she could, seated alone at the side of the 
object which she adored, now aid to quench the 
thirst which devoured him, and now afford to his 
feeble frame some cheering help; she sat, with- 
out ceasing, at his side: to each other, they 
spoke not; but what eloquence was expressed 
by their silent looks! What delights did they 
experience, when Medor, intentionally weak, let 
fall his weary head on her beauteous bosom ! 
when, encircled with the arm of his anxious lo- 
ver, his heart beat quick, while pressed by her 
charming hand ! A thousand times he wished, 
breathing the delicious perfume of this beloved 
object, to impress upon her charming lips an 
eager kiss, there to pour out his soul, to breathe 
out a rapturous existence, to place there all the 
love of his enraptured heart, which already gent- 
ly groaned under its load of bliss. 



102 DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. 

" And who, O heaven ! is this V* exclaimed 
he in silence ; " this generous angel, who che- 
rishes me, and whom I adore ? Ah ! this is only 
imagination, a deceitful dream ! And, alas ! I 
shall loose my life, when convinced of my mis- 
take \" 

But he gradually recovered ; and the fire soon 
began to sparkle once more from his sloe-black 
eyes; a charming smile reanimates his coral lips, 
guarding their double rows of enamel ; his cheek 
glows with ruddy freshness; his forehead, cloth- 
ed in blooming health, is half-hid under his 
flowing, golden locks. Angelica, overcome, has 
inhaled the most destructive draughts of love : 
she no longer displays that sweet and artless 
tenderness, that affecting pity, but rather is actu- 
ated by a blind affection ; her palpitating heart 
burns with love ; day and night, she hears, she 
sees no other object, than the features, the voice 
of him whom she adores. Even when absent, 
she thinks of him, sees him, hears him, and thinks 



DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. 103 

only of him. By her eager care, her young lo- 
ver recovers, and now in her veins circulates a 
•sweet poison, while her heart, affected with a 
new fever, alternately freezes and burns. She 
blushes, becomes pale, her heart beats alternately 
with fear, with pleasure, with shame, and with 
love. Sometimes the pleasing mistake of a dream 
delivers her to her lover, inflamed with tender- 
ness: the approach -of day dispels the illusion; 
but the delightful dream in vain passes away ; 
she again enjoys the dear delights of her ima- 
gination, and desire consumes her. At length, 
even her lips proclaim the ardour of her love ; 
she yields with a delightful reluctance; and Me- 
dor is blessed. 

Now, charming couple ! have ye really expe- 
rienced the sweet illusions of love, the tears of 
happiness, and the delights of an embrace! 
What has Angelica become ? With her, their 
dwelling, the meadows, the hills, the delightful 
groves, are full of Medor, and the most pleasing 



104 DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. 

sensations. Is Medor absent? She still looks 
eagerly after his footsteps, while she remains in 
a pleasing sadness, and breathes his image in the 
air which he has left. Does she enter with him 
into the paths of the green and sombre groves ? 
How exquisitely does she enjoy their mysteries 
and their shades ! How ardently does she de- 
light in those retired abodes, where, half-clothed 
in darkness, she can yield herself up to the en- 
joyments of love, without sacrificing her shame! 
Does she venture at the dawn of day to stray 
upon the hills, and breathe their matin-freshness ? 
" Such was Medor/' says she, " in the bloom of 
his youth !" Does she follow the windings of the 
bubbling rivulet? Its murmurs speak of nothing 
but Medor. Medor purifies the air, freshens the 
verdure, is pictured in the clouds, fills the groves, 
and is mixed with the perfumes which they emit. 
The waters, the meadows, the hill, and the thick- 
et ; the heavens and the earth, night and day, all 
display Medor, all talk of him to the heart of 
Angelica. 



DESCRIPTIONS Or LOVE 105 

But to crown their happiness, Hymen still was 
wanting; but, called upon by Angelica, he de- 
scended to crown the joys of their love : he join- 
ed them under the humble roof of the shepherd, 
and heaven looked with complacency on their 
union. Now, upon the rocks and solitary trees, 
they engraved the initials of their names, and 
declared to the grotto, and surrounding groves, 
the inexpressible delights which love had afford- 
ed them. 

t However, the queen wished to behold her dia- 
dem shine upon the brow of him whom she loved. 
A present of Rolando to her youthful arms, 
adorned with pearls, shone upon her hand : the 
queen took it from its place, and gave it to the 
shepherd : then with the object whom she wor- 
shipped, she hastened to Cathay, and her faithful 
people, respecting her choice, immediately re- 
cognized the sway of Medor. 

They had just retired from this rural asylum, 



106 DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. 

when Rolando, ever affected with the charms of 
Angelica, and led by inevitable fate, arrived at 
the place which they lately left. In perceiving 
the delightful arbours, full of charms, he stops, 
and descends from his courser, lays aside his ar- 
mour, and, anxious to breathe the fresh air in the 
grove, takes a solitary walk : he observes, on 
numbers of trees, the inscriptions of names, and 
even cyphers, the ingenious emblems of tender 
love. He regards them. Ah ! is he not mis- 
taken?— No; unhappy Rolando! he reads the 
name of Angelica. What other man has dared 
to unite his name with that of her whom he 
adores? He looks on it, he looks away, he looks 
upon it again ; each word, each letter is to him 
as pointed steel, with which his enamoured heart 
is unceasingly torn : he endeavours to conceal 
from himself the misfortnne which he fears; he 
desires, he hopes, he trembles, he believes, he 
doubts : yes, even against probability, he trusts, 
that some other than his Angelica has burned 
with love for Medor. He says so ; but, O hea- 



DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. 107 

ven! why cannot he believe it! Then to his 
remembrance returns the epistles of Angelica 
which he had formerly received. 

" I know these letters," says he ; "I see them ; 
yes; they are her own; written by her own hand. 
But perhaps this name conceals some mystery ; 
perhaps it is an amorous veil, under which is 
concealed my own." 

By these forced interpretations, he deceives 
himself; and in this manner, laying aside all 
gloomy thoughts, the unhappy Rolando still in- 
dulges himself with hope: but the more anxious- 
ly his mind throws off the suspicion which assails 
him, the more troublesome ^oes it become: like 
to the viscous glue, attached to the net hid by 
the branches, the efforts of the fastened, unsus- 
picious bird, to escape, only tend the more se- 
curely to hold him. 

Rolando beholds a rivulet forcing itself a way, 



108 DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. 

under the shelter of a hollow rock; at the en- 
trance of the grotto, the vine intertwined its vo- 
luptuous branches with the crooked ivy. Here, 
when the burning sun drives the weary traveller 
to seek the shade, Medor and Angelica, by count- 
less embraces, had united the transports of their 
hearts; here, every-where within the potto, and 
around it, appeared their two names, with the 
letters of both intermingled ; and Rolando ob- 
serves, at the entrance, the following lines: 

" Ye solitary abodes, delicious plains, fresh 
meads, obscure grotto, and limpid rivulets; and 
thou wood, where Angelica, daughter of Gala- 
frond, the renowned, whom so many Paladins 
have loved in vain, has often reposed in my 
arms! charming regions! to repay the favours 
ye have afforded me, I, poor Medor am unable : 
but may all those whom propitious fortune shall 
guide to your presence, whether warriors, lovers, 
beauties, or husbands, express to you my grati- 
tude, and say to the shade, the bush, the herb, 



DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. 109 

and the fountain; May the stars of heaven ever 
bless you ! and, may your tender buds never be 
cropped by the tooth of the destroyer!" 

The Paladin, alarmed at this dreadful writing, 
seeks in vain to doubt of what was too evident ; 
thrice he read it, thrice he feels his blood run 
cold. At length, his eye fixed on the rock, his 
countenance pale, and his body motionless, Ro- 
lando seems himself to be a rock. But with what 
a dreadful load is his heart oppressed ! Alas ! 
it is impossible for those who have never loved 
to conceive them : one must have felt the excru- 
ciating pangs of that passion ; pangs more acute 
than those ever inflicted by the sword. However, 
his spirits still revive, he still disbelieves this 
odious writing; he supposes that some traitor, to 
the honour of Angelica, has exercised his infer- 
nal invention, to sully the purity of her honour; 
and that he had hoped to stab him to the heart 
with the pangs of jealousy. But still he recollects, 



110 DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. 

that the cyphers he had formerly beheld were 
but too similar to those of his mistress. 

But, at length, hope again returns of Angelica 
being faithful to him; and he embraces, and 
trusts to this slender twig : he remounts his cour- 
ser, and pursues his journey. Not far distant, he 
beheld smoke issuing from some humble cots : he 
approaches them; listens; he hears the bleating 
of the flocks; he enters, and determines to make 
this spot the place of his retreat. 

The inhabitants now hasten around him, and 
take off his gilded spurs, his armour, and his 
sword. Brillia.dor is tied to a neighbouring 
manger. This is the same asylum which was 
afforded to Medor, when Angelica secretly heal- 
ed lp his wound. Rolando, unable to take nou- 
rishment, throws himself on his bed, broods over 
his sorrows, cherishes his misfortunes, and lessens 
them with his tears; when, all on a sudden, he 
beholls O heaven!. ...what does he behold? 






I »STO 




Itlllwirur net . et Sculp . 



Medor falls mZove Kith Angelica . 

p. 201 



DESCRIPTIONS OP LOVE. Ill 

Those cyphers, those writings which he abhors. 
On the roofs, the walls, the doors, on all around, 
their tormenting sight afflicts his tortured eyes. 
He wishes to arrive at the truth, but yet fears its 
dreadful nature : he fears to be exposed to this 
horrible light, and desires to be enveloped in 
eternal darkness. But he endeavours in vain to 
deceive himself; for the shepherd, endeavouring 
to lighten his load of sorrow, relates to him the 
adventure of Medor. He told him, that 

" Angelica one day had begged him to bear 
under his roof, the wounded Saracen; that she 
had, with the utmost solicitude, preserved his 
life; that, yielding to her love for this young 
stranger, she had a thousand times tasted its de- 
licious joys; that, though queen of Cathay, a 
splendid kingdom, she had not scrupled to 
espouse, under this humble roof, this Medor, an 
unknown soldier; and, in finishing his unaffected 
recital, he shows the brilliant bracelet which he 
had received from her; that bracelet which Ro- 



112 DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. 

lando had formerly given to her, and which she 
had given to the shepherd, when about to leave 
his hospitable fields, as a mark of her sense of his 
generous benevolence." 

At these words, Ronaldo feels the most inex- 
pressible torture. This stroke, like an axe, has 
cut off every enjoyment: no shade of hope now 
remains to him ; streams of tears flow from his 
eyes; he groans under the load of sorrow which 
oppresses him; he rolls himself on his couch, he 
roars, he leaps up in fury ; and now a sudden 
thought makes him pale with horror; he sup- 
poses, that Medor, and the ungrateful mistress 
whom he adores, have a hundred times, on this 
very couch, tasted the happy transports of love : 
he leaps from it, he darts forward, uttering hor- 
rible cries. Less quickly, and less afraid, does 
the vine-dresser, slumbering under the shade of 
his arbour, start up, and awake, when the viper, 
with his odious rings, twists itself around him, 
and disturbs his tranquil repose. This couch, this 



DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. 113 

cot, this shepherd, are now tormenting to his 
thought: he now only waits till the rising moon, 
or the approach of morn, shall light him on his 
way : he buckles on his armour, seizes his cour- 
ser, issues forth, revolving in his bosom a thou- 
sand gloomy thoughts, and searches after the deep- 
est recesses of the forest. There, yielding to the 
dictates of despair, he breathes forth, in frightful 
groans, his sorrow: his armour is covered with 
the tears which flow, in torrents, from his eyes. 

" What!" says he, " am I able to weep, while 
feeling such sorrow ? What! will not the excess 
of my torments dry up my tears? No; in my 
extreme grief, I am able to weep no morel my 
soul, my life itself, are now about to take their 
departure; these sighs are the departing motions 
of my heart. Under what a horrible load am I 
doomed to groan! What torments do I endure ! 
What do I say? /endure! No, no.. ..I can- 
not be, I am not Rolando. Rolando is no more... 

.....A traitor, a faithless mistress! they have 

I 



114 DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. 

murdered him I am the miserable ghost of 

that unhappy Rolando, who, issuing from hell.... 
O! what do I now suffer!.... Hell! yes! I feel its 
torments; they cruelly devour me!'' 

At these words his tears dry up, and he de- 
parts, in fury, on his way. From this moment 
there is no peace, no interval of sorrow, for Ro- 
lando: he cries, he runs, he believes himself to 
be suffering under a horrible dream : the wild- 
ness of delirium is apparent in his eyes and his 

features: he stares he listens he speaks he 

interrupts himself.. ...he walks, returns, stops, and, 
at length falls down on the sand, his face pale, 
and his hair dishevelled; he rolls, he moves on, 
like a hideous spectre, in the gloom of night, 
clad in frightful tatters, wandering among the 
tombs. 

He wandered, till the return of day, through 
>he depths of the forest; and when, at length, 
the sun brought back life to the world, his fate 



DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. 115 

led him to that hideous cave, where the writing 
of Medor had met his sight. At the sudden 
view of the object which torments him, he feels 
nought but vengeance, fury, and rage: he darts 
forward, and, seizing his sword, swings it in 
dreadful circles through the air, and, striking in 
fury the rocks, scatters their broken fragments 
around. Wherever the smallest trace of the 
loves of Medor appear, they are completely de- 
stroyed by his vengeful arm : the work of deso- 
lation is finished, the grotto disappears, and the 
asylum of the shepherd is no more to be found. 
Even the pure and limpid fountain escapes not 
his destroying steel : he throws roots, trunks, 
branches, and stones, heaped up together, into 
its transparent bosom ; till, at length, worn out 
with his exertion, breathless, and weak, he falls.. 
and fixes his motionless eyes on the heavens. 

Here, Rolando, without tears, or sleep, or 
thirst, or hunger, whether the sun rise or decline, 
remains a dreadful victim of despair, an awful 



116 DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. 

object of inanimate life, till the sun had three 
times surrounded the earth; and when, a fourth 
time the lord of day gladdens the creation, Rolan- 
do is bereft of his reason: but his strength begins 
to return ; and no sooner does he feel it, than, 
like pent-up fire in the bowels of the earth, 
which suddenly explodes, he breathes forth the 
fury raging in his bosom. Furiously he throws 
off, and destroys upon the ground, his lance, and 
corslet, his casque, and cimeter, tears his cloth- 
ing, his hair, and lays bare his athletic form, his 
hairy bosom, and his long nervous arms; and 
gradually falls under the dreadful influence of a 
horrible madness. 

But the fever of his delirium increases; and 
now, with inexpressible fury, he tears from its 
root, and throws, whizzing throws, a lofty pine, 
to which succeed other enormous trunks : the ash, 
the fir, the elm, and the withered oaks, those 
ancient kings of the forest, like the slender rose 
torn from the meadow, yield without resistance, 



DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. 117 

to the weight of his arm, and cover, the neigh- 
bouring plains with frightful desolation. At 
the dreadful noise, the shepherds, the labourers, 
the vine-dressers, the herdsmen, all rush from 
their hamlets, their hills, and their folds, anxious 
to behold that arm, whose thunder shakes the 
forests, and makes the earth to tremble. 



DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. 



CJNTO IF 



CONTENTS. 

The Shades are desirous to hear Milton sing of love unaccom- 
panied with woe. — Milton describes Eden: he gives a pic- 
ture of Adam and Eve : the innocence of their nature: they 
walk, hand in hand, through the groves of Paradise : eat 
the fruits for their food. — Adam addresses Eve, and asks 
her what she thought of the universe, when she first beheld 
it.— Eve beautifully describes her sensations : she is struck 
with her image in the water: a voice calls her from the 
sight : she is conducted by an invisible guide to Adam : her 
emotions on first beholding him.-— Adam interrupts Eve : 
describes to her his sensations on first viewing the objects 
around him ; the passion of love he felt for her -, and, at 
the close of day, leads hfr to the nuptial bower. 



DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE, 

Sfc. 



MILTON. 



-W O sooner had Ariosto finished the tale of Ro- 
lando, than the audience, roused by the affecting 
recital, admire the fury, the horrible despair, 
which were thrown from the volcano of his agi- 
tated soulj when, not far distant from Medor 
and Angelica, they behold, O dreadful surprise, 
Rolando standing. What! has his awful rage 
departed ? Yes ; his delirium is now at an end. 
He looks on Medor, enchanted with the charms 
of his Angelica, without agitation: he is no 
more affected with those desires which she in- 
spired, but resigus such cares to the winds and 
waves; and, at length, turning away with an 



123 DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. 

indifferent look, he disappears among the groves 
of the sweet-scented laurel. 

The Shades, now satiated with the agitating 
recital of Rolando's tortures, were desirous to 
hear a tale of love, unaccompanied with woe, 
which inspired an innocent pleasure alone, with- 
out regret, or remorse, or those frightful events, 
which too often accompany its most exquisite 
enjoyments. And now, Milton, seizing his lyre, 
prepares to sing of the father of men. The 
audience eagerly crowd around him, and he 
breathes, in the following song, his poetic enthu- 
siasm : 

The lofty hill of Eden is clothed with laugh- 
ing fields; its feet are every-where surrounded 
with thickets, and inaccessible rocks prevent all 
approach to it. On their steep sides, grow tall 
and dark firs, cedars, palms, and venerable pines, 
which, gradually ascending, form green steps, 
rising, in majesty, shade above shade; while 
this elevated spot is surrounded with a superb 
amphitheatre and extensive plains. 

Higher still, on the tops of these stately trees, 
a circle of shrubbery formed a chain of defence ; 



DESCRIPTIONS OP LOVE. 123 

the rampart of Paradise, from whence the eye had 
circuit wide over the plains below: this rampart 
was covered, on every side, with fruitful trees, 
shining in blossom; their hoary ornaments, mix- 
ed with the yellow fruit, float in the air, the 
sport of the wind; the lord of day, pleased with 
their changing beauty, paints with green and 
azure hues, gilds, reddens, and silvers o'er, their 
waving crops, both fruits and flowers. Not so 
beautiful appears the glowing west, when the 
sun dips his garment in the ocean ; or, when his 
light sparkles in the many-coloured bow, adorn- 
ing the front of the heavens. 

So was this beauteous spot adorned with vari- 
ous trees: there a pure, drawn from, a purer r 
air expanded the heart, enlivened the senses, 
and made the inhabitants breathe the breath of 
spring: there a thousand fresh zephyrs, wafted 
on their balmy wings the perfumed odours of 
flowers, and, passing gently over the lily, the 
rose, and the thyme, renewed and increased their 
odorous powers: there, elevated above a thou- 
sand green trees, flourished the happy tree of 
life, shedding the ambrosia of its pure gold, and 
raising, proudly, its branches to heaven ; while 
the tree of knowledge, the cause of all our woe, 
displays, at its side, its fatal verdure. 



124 DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. 

A river, flowing through the western plain, 
without winding from its course, arrives at the 
foot of the hill, and buries its waters in a deep 
gulf; from these waters slowly arises, through 
the obscure pores of the earth, a pure fountain, 
which, appearing at the top of the hill, waters 
the abode of the father of men, creates a thou- 
sand rivulets, which all return, by various routes, 
to the subterranean river, dance together in hap- 
py cascades, and descend together to their for- 
mer abode ; and four rivers, filled with the waters 
of these hidden stores, flowed through immense 
plains, enriching them in their progress, and at 
length, carrying their treasures to the distant 
ocean. 

If art should venture to trace these sublime 
pictures, how should I delight to follow, in their 
course, those waves, which, spouting from their 
august source, formed liquid sapphires in the air, 
then became rivulets caressed by the zephyrs, 
and upon the golden sand, in silver streams, roll- 
ed gently their enchanting waves, carrying their 
enlivening freshness to water the tree, the plant, 
and the flower. 

Here were to be seen, none of those cold, 



DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. 125 

flowery children of the hot-house, which adorn 
false parterres with a factitious spring, which, 
separated into beds, and knots, suffer their trea- 
sures to be held in captivity; but these children 
of the air, of the zephyr, and the waves, caress- 
ed by the meadows, and the woods, and wander- 
ing every-where, and uniting themselves to trees, 
and bushes, spread their floating treasures on all 
around; at one time, fresh and full-blown, they 
presented their smiling blades to the zephyrs, 
and displayed to the rays of the sun their gold- 
en plumes and their vermilion hues; at another, 
under the shelter of the deepest shades, they 
escaped the burning influence of the sun, and 
refreshed themselves by the cooling waters. 

This delightful spot charmed the eye with 
beauties ever new ; a thousand various trees wept 
odorous gums and balm, or shining with purple 
or golden fruits, displayed their treasures hang- 
ing on their lofty branches; between them, the 
delighted eye beheld the beauteous plains, and 
the distant hills whitened with flocks; the palm- 
tree, and the delightful lemon-tree, shining in 
gold; the flowery turf of the laughing meadows, 
where the rose, in the midst of myriads of flow- 
ers, abandons to the kisses of the morning 



126 DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. 

zephyr, her half-covered virgin bosom, while as 
yet no thorn accompanied its bloom ; there, na- 
ture, with a sweet illusion, enchants, en every 
hand, the fields and the forests; there, grottoes, 
where the vine, long winding, twines itself, are 
seen under the fresh shade, or spreading on 
every side its flexile branches, and seizing, for 
support, on the neighbouring bushes, displays 
its ruby-coloured fruit. Here, also, were to 
be seen rivulets, sources, fountains, and waters 
rolling over the mountains, through the woods, 
and the plains, flowing, falling, rising in bub- 
bling spouts, winding in charming labyrinths, 
disperse, flying far distant, joining again toge- 
ther, and, at a distance, burying in the woods, 
their darkened bodies; afterwards spreading 
themselves out into a fine lake, whose pure and 
unruffled bosom, displaying, like a mirror, its 
motionless azure, showed on its delightful sides, 
a thousand lovely flowers repeating their foliage 
on the breast of the sleeping water, where their 
shaking tops and the sky, painting themselves by 
turns, display a charming combat of light and 
of shade. There, the happy families of winged 
songsters, and the harmonious voices of number- 
less echoes, and the various murmurs of the 
waters and the groves, join their voices, and 



DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. 127 

form a thousand concerts. There the gentle 
zephyrs rove, on wandering wings, distributing 
every-where, their odorous stores; whilst Pan, 
sole monarch of the seasons, to whose footsteps 
succeeds an eternal spring, irradiating, with his 
joyous presence, these charming abodes, danced 
with gladness, accompanied by the graces. 

Not so charming was the far-famed valley of 
Enna, or that delicious grove where, amid so 
many flowers fully blown, young Proserpine, 
while gathering roses, was, like them, scarcely 
blown, snatched away by the amorous Pluto. 

In the midst of the beauties contained in these 
delightful fields, and among its various inhabit- 
ants, two beings walked erect, lifting to heaven 
their noble foreheads, serene, and the august 
sovereigns of this enchanting abode; though na- 
ked, they were covered with a veil of modesty ; 
they shone, with dignity, with honour, and inno- 
cence ; peaceful rulers of the earthy the Deity 
was pictured on their elevated countenances, and 
their sublime appearance; every thing lovely, 
every thing capable of exciting reverence, rea- 
son, virtue, wisdom, and strict piety; piety, that 
ornament, that pure incense of the heart, which 



128 DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. 

man, a free agent, addresses to his Creator : truth, 
honour, love, and intelligence shone in their 
faces, and displayed their superiority. 

In their form, however, some inequality dis- 
tinguished the beauty of the two sexes: the one, 
majestic, displayed power and courage; the 
other, more attractive graces; the former lived 
in this charming spot, for God alone; the latter 
lived, for both God and her husband : the eye of 
the man sparkled gladly, and with conscious su- 
periority; his long and black eye-brows, and his 
noble and august forehead, displayed the dignity 
of his rank; his hair, surrounding the top of his 
forehead, shaded it with various tresses; black 
as the hyacinth, they carelessly flow upon his 
beautiful neck; supported by his limbs, he raises 
erect his nervous frame; his arms and hands, 
the faithful servants of his body, hang freely 
in the air by his side, sometimes folded and 
sometimes stretched out; the feet under his 
limbs lightly bound forward, and, ready to obey 
t he wish of the soul, perform their various duties. 

His spouse displayed eyes sweet and heavenly ; 
she offered to the sight her naked charms, the 
budding beauties of a charming bosom, and the 



DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. 129 

graceful form of a lovely frame ; the silken soft- 
ness of a transparent skin, displaying the branches 
of the slender veins ; fair, floating locks, rolling 
in long folds around a thousand graces, adorned 
by their shade, and with a golden veil, the 
sport of the capricious wind, hid and displayed, 
by turns, her alabaster form; as the pliant 
vine entwines itself round the stately elm, so the 
tresses of Eve displayed their beauteous wind- 
ings; a symbol of weakness united to power, 
not by a servile obedience, and by a heart en- 
chanted, which freely offers itself, and cheerfully 
abandons its will ; which yields rather to sym- 
pathy than to duty, courageously submits, is 
tender and modest, which gives way in its resist- 
ance, and whose mild refusal is rendered more 
charming by the ultimate triumph of love. 

As yet no veil hid those charms which were 
sacred to the innocent enjoyments of love; inno- 
cence displayed to the sight its lovely features; 
the feeling of shame did not yet exist; the inno- 
cent inhabitants of this heavenly abode knew 
not that shame, which afterwards made their 
descendants blush for the instincts of their na- 
ture; one of the lamentable effects of sin : dis- 
graceful honour, wretched descendant of crimes, 

K 



130 DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. 

thou hast lost virtue for its false semblance, and 
thou restorest every thing but innocence. 

To the angels, to God himself, they, in their 
simplicity, unblushingly, display their naked 
charms; such were these happy parents of man- 
kind, faithful to their Creator, the noble patterns 
of their posterity; so, hand in hand, they fear- 
less, and free, walked through their sacred groves; 
they roved, whithersoever inclination led them ; 
and, in their walks, the flowers of the orange, 
the rose, and the pomegranate, which, from the 
thickets, hung over their heads, and waved 
around them, embalmed their hair with an odor- 
ous dew, and formed a soft carpet for their feet, 
on the earth ; whilst the zephyrs, softly breathing, 
and on light wings, gently caressed them, and 
the songs of the birds expressed their joy. 

In the depth of a thicket, a fountain winding 
smoothly under a varying shade; there, seated 
on the green turf, adorned with their native 
beauty, they sat down : already was their appe- 
tite sharpened by gentle toil, and their table, 
crowned with fruits, was always seasoned with 
desire of food ; the trees, bent with fruit, offered 
ready stores to their hands ; they relished 



DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVK. 131 

that food, which renewed their strength; the 
waters, which they collected in a vessel of bark, 
quenched their thirst with delicious nectar; they, 
meanwhile, neglected not amorous looks and 
smiles, those forerunners of gentle dalliance 
and innocent delight, with sweet caresses, and 
that charming discourse, in which their enchant- 
ed hearts love to express their enamoured emo- 
tions. 

" Dear Eve!" Adam said, " express to me, I 
beseech thee, what emotions the sight of the 
world has excited; and what were the various 
emotions of thy bosom when thou first beheldest 
the universe." 

" I found myself," replied she, " on the bank 
of a transparent fountain, softly laid on a ver- 
dant bed ; it was shaded by trees, whose tufted 
tops, waving in the air, made a confused noise: I 
arose, uncertain whether what I beheld was real: 
I enquired of myself, Whence do I come ? Where 
<lo I go ? Where am I ? I beheld a rivulet, spout- 
ing from the hollow of a rock, and which began 
to widen near me: it extended its limpid surface, 
and formed, in the fields, another humid plain, 
which, gradually losing its former motion, dis- 



132 DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. 

played the firmament to my astonished sight; 
I approach the pure stream, and bending, look 
downwards. O heaven ! I perceived another 
figure bend as I did ; I started at the sight, and 
fell back; it started, and fell back also: an un- 
conquerable inclination drawing me towards it, I 
beheld it once more: how beautiful did it ap- 
pear! and how anxiously did it seem to admire 
me in return: our eyes spoke responsively to 
each other; they mutually sparkled with love: 
its arms seemed to hold themselves out to meet 
mine, which were extended: I saw it speak, but 
was unable to hear it : I should still have conti- 
nued to behold it, being powerfully restrained 
by irresistible inclination, had not the sound of a 
voice drawn me away. 

" That object/' it said, " which attracts thy 
attention, which appears, disappears, and returns 
as thou dost, O beauteous Eve! is thyself: fol- 
low me; I will guide thee to the midst of a bow- 
er, where thou shalt behold, not a shadowy image, 
but a real model of thy attracting form: thou 
shalt become his, shalt ever continue to love him, 
and, by producing the fruits of so delightful a 
union, by him thou shalt become the august 
mother of men."— Could I hesitate? I obeyed 



DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. 133 

the voice, followed my invisible guide, and im- 
mediately I beheld thee, stretched on the moss, 
under the shade of a plane-tree; beautiful, ma- 
jestic, yet less mild, less lovely, less full of those 
seducing charms, of which the fountain had dis- 
played to me the flattering image. At sight of 
thee, all my senses and my heart were agitated ; 
I endeavoured to fly; thou pursuedst me, and 
my terror increased : thou exclaimest, " Beau- 
teous Eve ! be not afraid ; thou hast been taken 
from my side, why then art thou in terror? Cease 
to retire, thou half of myself! avoid not him 
whom thou beholdest, and who loves thee. In 
forming thee, the Creator has taken thee from 
the place nearest my heart." In finishing these 
words, my hand was seized and pressed by thine 
tenderly : I yielded, and felt how much thy ma- 
jestic presence had influence over my beauty, and 
especially thy virtue, before which every thing 
is effaced." 

Adam interrupted her ; " Charming Eve! O, 
with what grace does thy seducing voice adorn 
thy discourse! What delightful moments does 
it bring to my remembrance! I still remember, 
when I first opened my eye-lids, my eyes were 
dazzled with the vivid light; I admired the shi- 



lo4 DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE, 

ning glories of the firmament; led by instinct, 
1 first moved towards that immense vault, and to 
reach it, I immediately rose, and darted for- 
ward: I beheld myself surrounded by meadows, 
rivers, banks, valleys, groves, rivulets, and those 
animated beings which this beauteous spot con- 
tains, who ran, walked, leaped, and flew together : 
every thing smiled on me; every object enchant- 
ed my heart, full and overflowing with joy and 
with gladness. I now suddenly, and in surprise, 
look upon my form, and observe myself; I feel 
myself lightly borne upon my feet ; I go, I come ; 
I rim with agility: I knew not, however, the 
cause of my existence, what I was, where I was, 
or what had given me life. I wished to speak, 
and immediately I express my thoughts, and 
call by their names the objects which I behold. 
Osun! thou glorious light, who oiFerest to ray 
pew so many beauties ! O earth ! wood ! river, 
and delicious field ! and all ye living creatures, 
who bound in my sight! speak; if you observed 
my birth, tell me, who was the author of my 
existence ; how can I know, and how can I adore 
him, who has given me life, and sight, and 
breath ; and who has placed me in this delight- 
ful abode ? 

" I spoke, when, bending my eye-lids, Ibeheld 



DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. 135 

at my sight fruits and flowers which captivated 
my ravished eyes with their colours: I admire 
the thicket, the fresh valley, covered with flow- 
ers, or green verdure : the purple colour of the 
grape, the whiteness of the flocks, the dazzling 
of the light, and its charming retreat; the rivu- 
lets displaying their transparent waters; all these 
objects became gradually familiar to my sight, 
and my memory soon retained their various ima- 
ges: their effects, however, deceived my, as yet, 
untutored senses; I was ignorant still of their 
shapes and distance: I approach them, and my 
hand feels their smooth rotundity, follows their 
sharp windings, and feels their depth ; but what 
new pleasure, what other wonder now affected 
me ! Sweet and various sounds now struck my 
ravished ear: it was the confused noise of foun- 
tains and rivulets, the whispers of the breeze, 
and the melodious song of the birds. My soul 
rejoiced in this charming concert: I beheld, I 
heard it, and I desired still more to hear it. When 
the air wafted to my sense its ravishing perfume, 
O, with what delight did I breathe its sweets! 
A nameless desire of feeling and knowing the 
various pleasures which surrounded me, ani- 
mated my whole soul : it filled all my senses with 
new delight: between two growing trees, whose 



136 DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. 

arms almost embraced each other, hung the 
treasures of the bee: at sight of this object, a 
new desire awakens within me, and, anxious to 
reach the booty, I run, I seize it, and immediate- 
ly, with delight, I press between my fingers a 
golden froth, which, placed within my mouth, 
inspires a new gratification; and I drink long 
draughts of this delightful liquor. 

" But still one pleasure was wanting to com- 
plete my happiness : when I beheld thee, O ! I 
am unable to tell thee the joy of my heart at 
thy sight — it eclipsed every other object: thine 
eyes, thy colour, thy features were to me the 
whole universe. I beheld the heaving of thy 
breast, and its ravishing beauties appeared to me 
more lovely than the budding lily or the rose: in 
approaching thee, my heart beat with anxious 
emotion, I trembled, and my whole frame shook 
with joy. But a new delight still awaited me; 
thou spakest, I heard thee, and thy voice found 
instantly the way to my heart. Charming ob- 
ject! I said to thee, O what deligtful sounds, 
what winning attractions thou possessest for my 
heart! What extasy has that voice of thine in- 
spired me with ! It agitates, inflames, and rouses 
all my senses, and seizes upon my heart. Now I 



DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. 137 

endeavour to remove thy amiable embarrassment, 
and soon, abandoning to my transports thy arm, 
thou sufferest the trembling hand of thy happy 
lover to seize upon thine, soft and burning with 
emotion: my soul in its transport takes flight, 
and leaves me; it flies to thy mouth, and my 
mouth follows it. I now taste the sweetness of a 
long and innocent kiss: in my arms, on my 
breast, I feel thee, I press thee. O what sweet 
delight did I enjoy! and thou didst partake of 
it all ! thou, my spouse, my sister, my daughter. 
....But I am unable to find a name sufficient to 
express how much I adore thee! At length my 
heart experienced, with thee, every pleasure, the 
height of delight. God has been profuse in his 
bounty to every part of nature; but on thee he 
has lavished his gifts without measure; thou 
alone hast been able to acquire empire over me. 
I love the light of heaven; but still more do I 
love that voluptuously-timid light which sparkles 
in thy shining eyes: their amorous rays excite 
an inexpressible and immediate emotion in my 
soul! I love the brilliant colours of the flower, 
but still more do I love the light of thy counte- 
nance. I have delighted in the perfume of the 
rose, but how much more delightful to me has 
been the breath of thy rosy lips ! I listened to 



138 DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. 

the birds, and their songs filled me with joy ; but 
thy strains still tingle in my ears, and vibrate in 
my heart. I have tasted nectar prepared by the 
bee; but still more sweet is the nectar perfumed by 
thy breath, when my lips press thine, and all my 
senses are agitated with a delightful emotion : 
no object but thee has power over my will. I 
resign every wish, when Eve desires it: I cease 
not to adore her charms, to delight under her 
sway, and to drink draughts of love in the air 
which she breathes. 

«* And whence hast thou received that ascend- 
ancy over me, which has taken away my power, 
and rendered me dependant? Hast thou been 
able to infuse into my frame thy weakness, 
when our souls, lost in pleasure, and intermingled 
with each other, partake the ravishing transports 
of love? Yes! I believe that, from the power of 
the love which inspires me, thy beauty rules 
over me, and I have lost my empire/' 

Having said thus, Eve, her eyes glistening with 
innocent love, bends towards the breast of her 
husband in embracing him, and displays to his 
ravished sight the rising beauties of her palpita- 
ting breast, half covered with the veil of her 






DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. 139 

yellow, floating tvesscs. Adam was overcome by 
her conquering charms: he felt her beauteous 
breast leaning on his bosom, and smiled gladly 
on his happy spouse : as the heavens smile on 
the pregnant cloud, when it is filled with those 
creative stores which produce the crops, the 
verdure, and the flowers. Adam, by a kiss, full 
of his innocent love, has conveyed his whole soul 
to the lips of his spouse. 

Meantime the sun, losing his power, sends 
forth on the horizon his purple and yellow 
waves: evening comes on, and with a dim veil 
has covered the obscure amphitheatre of the dis- 
tant mountains : night and silence succeed : the 
air is still, and murmur and noise are asleep: 
animals, waves, birds, and the zephyr are all at 
rest: the black-bird, alone awake, pours forth 
his complaint ; and silence is enchanted with his 
ravishing strains. Hesperus brightly sparkles, 
followed by a thousand stars; the moon, sweetly 
veiled, and clothed in clouded majesty, like a 
queen, advances: at intervals she displays her 
beauteous face, till, at length, dispelling the sur- 
rounding clouds, she silvers o'er the darkness 
with her shining light. 

This was the hour propitious to amorous de- 



140 DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. 

lights: the happy pair, led by tender desire, go 
together to repose on the hymeneal bed. Their 
souls are now inspired with delights hitherto 
unknown. Hand in hand they go, admiring the 
beauteous stars, those majestic luminaries of 
heaven; they hear, at a distance, in the harmo- 
nious shade, the resounding of the adorations 
of the angels; they listen to the holy hymn of 
the seraphims, who, with their golden harps and 
celestial songs, proclaim the infinite glory of 
God; their hearts delight in these aerial songs, 
and mount up to heaven with their charming 
sounds. 

They arrive, at length, at a secret grove, the 
bower of which is surrounded with freshening 
foliage : God himself formed it of the laurel and 
the myrtle, whose branches, entwined on high, 
formed its covering: the acanthus, and other 
numberless flowers, mixing their leaves, and af- 
fording their shade on its sides, formed green 
curtains, which were adorned with a thousand 
hues. There the rainbow spread forth its various 
colours; the rose, chief favourite of spring, the 
lilac, thejessamine, displayed themselves in knots, 
in assemblages, in festoons, which perfumed the 
air. A thousand other flowers clothed the green 



MIILTON 




Wiltitmw del. et Sculp 



To the niipiialBotv r I led her hi lurking Wee the mora. 

F 



DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. 141 

turf, a carpet, more glorious than that which 
displays the eastern pomp of the luxurious Per- 
sian. 

O beauteous Eve ! it was here that an angel 
guided thee, by his hand, towards Adam, on thy 
marriage-day; a virgin, simple, innocent, with 
no other veil to hide thy budding beauties than 
thy carelessly-floating hair: a blush spread over 
thy sparkling countenance, like the shining of 
Aurora on the eastern cloud : the heavens smiled 
at thy beauteous blushes, and the birds, delight- 
ed, clapped their wings; the earth trembled, and 
the zephyrs every-where repeated the sighs of 
the happy pair ; repeated them to the fields, the 
mountains, and deep caverns, who also repeated 
to the woods and the waters : and from the fields, 
and the mountains, and the woods, in their turn, 
every voice joined in the chorus of love. Thus 
was the first hymeneal day celebrated. 

Beauteous Eve, led by her happy husband, 
beheld the same arbour reared on this spot : 
here, standing on the threshold, and addressing 
themselves to God, to that God who created the 
heavens and the light, they each offered up a 
simple prayer, which, being the solemn homage 



142 DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. 

of pure hearts, ascended, like incense, to the feet 
of the Most High; then, under the bower, whose 
shade protects them, the happy pair repose them- 
selves together. 

But no sooner had the returning light sparkled 
in the east, than Adam, to admire her the more, 
led the beauteous Eve towards the horizon, 
adorned with the rising, sun. In what pomp, in 
what glory, did the sun arise in their sight! The 
mountains were first crowned with his glorious 
rays, as he poured forth the sparkling of his 
flame in streaks of gold, rolling before him his 
chariot of fire. Before he appear, this king of 
the firmament long retards his pace, and, long 
ready to burst forth, suffers the impatient to 
await its master; but the lord of da}'-, suddenly 
dazzling with glory, appears and fills the desert- 
ed heavens with his rays: he has chased the 
night with his jealous rays, and clothes, at his 
approach, the smiling earth, young and beauteous 
bride, with the most delightful colours: she ex- 
hales, in perfume, her verdure and her flowers; 
where the dew trembles, or the limpid drops 
light up their various-coloured fires at the fire of 
the sun; the harmonious people of the groves, 
awaked, sing, and welcome, in chorus, the mo- 



DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. 143 

narch of the sky : these hymns, this incense of 
the woods, of the meadows, towards the lumina- 
ry, who dispenses the sources of life, plunge 
man in a sweet and delightful reverie; his heart 
filled with delight, he adores the beneficent pow- 
er of God, he contemplates that great being, 
he bows down with reverence, and exclaims, O 
God! what power shines in thy goodness! how 
shall we be able to be grateful for thy kindness ! 

He said ; and in his fields, in his deep forest, 
he walks, with their master, the king of the 
world. 



DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. 



CANTO V. 



CONTENTS. 

The Ausonian bard strikes the lyre: Eneas and his companions 
arrive on the shores of Carthage : Eneas is kindly received by 
Dido. — By a device of Venus, Dido is made to entertain a 
passion for Eneas. — At a banquet, she requests him to nar- 
rale his adventures and the fate of Troy. — Her passion for 
Eneas increases: she advises icith her sister on the subject of 
her love. — A hunting match it prepared. — Dido and Eneas 
are of the party : they are overtaken by a storm : take shelter 
in a grotto, where the tempest toitnesses their union. Mercury 
is dispatched to Eneas, to admonish him against remaining 
at Carthage: Eneas's distraction : orders his chiefs, unper- 
ceived, to prepare, for their departure. — Dido discovers his 
intention: upbraids him with his deception: he replies: her 
rage increases : she declares it in the strongest terms, and 
leaves Eneas without giving him time to answer: he pre- 
pares for sea. — Dido expresses her feelings to Eliza upon the 
subject : solicits her to persuade Eneas to delay his depar- 
ture: he is not to be moved. — The Queen's despair on the 
occasion : worn out with grief, she prepares for her death : 
she orders a funeral pile to be erected. — Mercury again ap- 
pears to Eneas in his sleep, and admonishes him to depart, 
with which he complies. — Dido, on the morning, missing the 
ships, resigns herself to distraction and despair, runs ivith 
precipitation to t he funeral pile ', seizes t-he s cord of her lover, 
and plunges it in her bosom. 



DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE, 

Sfc. 



VIRGIL. 

A HE Shades, charmed with the strains of Mil- 
ton, applaud his song, inspired by the Muses; 
his song abounding with immortal beauties; sur- 
passing far all the glories of his predecessors. 
In his verses, every thing is grand, simple, and 
solemn; in Eden's garden, everything is hea- 
venly; every object displays the unaffected 
picture of love, and the pristine forms of the 
youthful world. Man, though less than angelic, 
is more than human; and woman, O how beau- 
teous is she on her marriage-day ! her innocent 
endearments breathe decency, virtue, candour, 
grace, and innocence. All the assembled Shades 



148 DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. 

believe that, in this flattering description, they 
again enjoy Elysium, and its perfect bliss. But 
the Ausonian bard, now suddenly sounding his 
lyre, draws forth the tones of harmony. He 
prepares; they listen; and he begins his song in 
these words : 

Eneas had now wandered seven years, the 
sport of the waves; when, having with difficulty 
escaped a dreadful storm, he conducted his fleet 
to the shores of Carthage. He was here received 
by the beauteous Dido, who had founded, in 
these regions, her new Sidon. However, the 
mother of the hero, beauteous Cytherea, beheld, 
from her seat in the ethereal abode, her son in 
the midst of a deceitful court, whose uncertain 
favours were subject to caprice, and she feared 
the wrath of the vengeful Juno. 

She addresses her son: " O thou, who art to 
be the founder of that immense power, of which 
I am proud; my son, thou who smilest with the 
features of Jupiter himself; my dear son, hear me, 
and lend me thine aid. Thou beholdest how 
Juno, ever inexorable, pursues thy brother Eneas, 
a prey to her rage; and often have I beheld thee, 
a partner in my sorrow : at this moment, Dido, 



DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. 149 

by the most enticing words, by the most flattering 
attentions, retains him at Carthage. How do I 
dread the effects of her kindness ! What treason 
may we not expect from an asylum, prepared for 
us by Juno ! What an opportunity for her hatred ! 
Ah ! let us defeat her schemes. I wish, that, caught 
in thy toils, pierced with thy darts, the heart of his 
Dido may be unable to escape me; that it may 
be unable for a moment to deceive me; that, in 
fine, Eneas may be as dear to her, as he is to me ; 
and, to succeed in my wish, the scheme I pro- 
pose, is this: Ascanius, expected by Dido, who 
awaits him, is preparing to approach imme- 
diately the Sidonian walls; and this royal child, 
my delight and my joy, intends to carry thither 
the treasures saved from the wreck of Troy; 
and now I intend to seal up his eyes in sleep, 
and to carry him to my woods of Gnidus and 
Paphos, lest this child, disconcerting my views, 
appear, and defeat them. Disguise thyself, my 
son, during the night, (one night will suffice for 
my wish) and assume the appearance and fea- 
tures of this child : and when Dido, affected with 
the charms of thy age, shall take thee in her 
arms, shall otter to thee her knees, and shall pro- 
fusely bestow on thee the sweetest kisses, and 
whilst, at the royal banquet, Bacchus liberally 



150 DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. 

dispenses his favours, then do thou, by degrees, 
dispelling her prudent caution, pour into her 
veins thy powerful poison/' 

Cupid obeys; and, stripping himself of his 
wings, he smilingly assumes the new form of 
Ascanius* he departs, and rejoices in his intended 
imposture. Venus has now poured into the slum- 
bering senses of the beauteous infant, whom she 
loves, the vapours of sleep: she takes him, and 
carrying him herself in her arms, goes to place 
him in the midst of her smiling bowers, upon a 
shaded bed, composed of young shoots, where, 
emulously springing, the soft marjoram embalms 
him with the perfume of its delicious breath. 

Already, following Achates to the Sidonian 
walls, Love, smiling, carries the Trojan treasures: 
he arrives at the sumptuous portico of the pa- 
lace; he enters; he beholds Dido under a mag- 
nificent canopy, stretched out, and reposing in a 
radiant bed, which dazzled the sight by its rays 
from the pure gold ; Eneas and the Trojans, dis- 
playing their luxuries, lay upon other beds o* 
purple and scarlet; some bathe their hands in 
the freshness of the water, and dry with cloths 
shining in whiteness: Ceres offers her gifts con- 



DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. 151 

tained in a basket: a troop of fifty beauties 
watch over the plenteous feast, displayed in long 
array, and they burn with perfumes exhaled 
towards the gods; a hundred youths of Tyre, a 
hundred virgins of the same age, served up the 
smoking dishes, and poured out the cheering 
wine; the nobles, scattered in numbers through- 
out the palace, lay stretched out on brilliant 
couches. Immediately, a buzzing noise of ap- 
probation ran through every part of the capaci- 
ous hall; the brilliant gifts of Eneas, and the 
beauty of lulus, his sweet features, heightened 
by an amiable modesty, his infantine discourse, 
accompanied with a feigned simplicity, his robe 
in which the foliage of the acanthus had been 
embroidered, excited the applause of all the 
guests; above all, the unhappy queen, delivered 
up, on this unfortunate day, to the fury of an un- 
governable love, burns with an inexpressible 
desire at the sight of the god, and is unable to 
withdraw from him, either her sight or her heart; 
he feigns to behold a father restored to his love, 
and long remains at his breast, enjoying his 
kisses; he now flies to Dido: Dido beholds him, 
is enamoured, fixes her eyes, and her whole 
heart on the 1« veiy boy, embraces h:m, and, alas! 
knows not, in her misfortune, the formidable god 



159 DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. 

who is approaching her heart; and he, remem- 
bering the orders of his mother, attacks the 
image of a husband always beloved, which he 
endeavours gently to efface, as he wishes another 
image to fill its place; and succeeds in inspiring, 
by means of his attractions, that heart with de- 
sires, to which it had long been a stranger. 

No sooner had the first portion of the banquet 
been finished, and given way to the golden vases 
shining with vermilion juice, than, at the sight 
of the nectar crowned by the rose, immoderate 
shouts of joy resounded through the palace : a 
hundred lustres of gold make their fires, triumph- 
ing over darkness, succeed to the light of day, 
which seems now to be reborn. The queen 
now arises; her attendants present to her a cup, 
dazzling with pearls and gold, the cup of Belus, 
of a hundred royal ancestors. All are silent, 
and attentive ; while she invokes the gods : 

'• O omnipotent Jove! powerful guardian of 
hospitality ! render this day favourable to the 
united people, who now address to you their vows : 
may the remembrance of it last to our latest poste- 
rity! Bacchus, thou smiling god ! come, and let 
us be partakers of thy mirth ! Descend, O Juno ! 



BESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. 153 

and Jet us be partakers of thy bounty ! Sons of 
Tyre ! celebrate this day, which is dear to my 
heart." She said ; and now her hand pours out 
the liquor, and then, to taste it, she puts the cup 
to her lips, and afterwards holds itouttoBitias,who 
accepts the sweet challenge, and drinks plenti- 
fully of the foaming liquor. Every one follows 
his example; and now, touching his lyre, Topas, 
inspired by a heavenly enthusiasm, sings the sub- 
lime lessons of the lofty Atlas, the course of the 
sun, and the order of the seasons : he explains, 
how the sun hides himself from the earth; how 
the hail, and the thunder, and man, and animals 
are produced; why winter so hastily plunges the 
lord of day in the watery gulf; and summer 
thaces away the slothful nights; he describes, 
in his song, the sparkling bears, the cow-herd 
driving his laborious car, and the hyades pouring 
forth their watery torrents. 

The boisterous mirth of the guests, meanwhile, 
increases; but the pain of Dido augments; she 
speaks only to the hero, looks on him alone, and 
intoxicates herself with large draughts of lore. 
Then she asks Eneas about Diomede, enquires 
who was Ajax, Idomeneus, Memnon, the great- 
Achilles; and still questions him, at one time. 



154 DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. 

concerning Priam, at another, concerning Hector. 
At length, Eneas yielding to her importunity, 
relates the stratagem of the perfidious Sinon, the 
fall of Troy, and the many misfortunes which 
had befallen him, for seven years, on the sea. 

The queen, devoured by love, cherishes an 
unknot n poison in her veins. Her agitated 
heart unceasingly broods over the noble virtues, 
the great intrepidity, the descent, the illustrious 
descent, of the Trojan hero. His features are 
deeply imprinted on her heart, and his voice 
agitates her even in her sleep. 

Scarcely had Aurora, lighted up by the rays of 
the sun, raised her blushing forehead, and the 
pure sky begun to dissipate the humid darkness, 
when, Dido, awake by the pangs of love, searches 
for her sister, a.;d pours forth her emotions in her 
friendly bosom. 

" O my dear Eliza! what dream have I been 
troubled with? Whence comes that terror which 
assails me? Who is r his stranger? What a coun- 
tenance, what eyes, what dignity in his form! 
Yes ! I believe it. He is descended from the gods ! 
Some fear always attends the heart which flows 



DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. 155 

with vulgar blood ; but he, what misfortunes, what 
horrible accidents, has he not heroically braved 
for seven years! Since the gods delivered up to 
destruction the husband who first engaged my 
affection, my heart has abjured the foolish flame 
of love; all attachments have been contemned 
by me, and he alone has been able to inspire me 
with an inclination towards a pleasing error. I 
will own it, that, since that horrid murder, which 
plunged the hand of a brother into the bosom of 
my husband, he alone has been able to affect my 
heart, to stagger my resolution. I have felt for 
Sicheus a similar inclination: but rather let the 
earth swallow me up; let Jupiter, with his sove- 
reign hand, strike me with his thunder, and 
plunge me into the frightful regions of the dead, 
the dark abode of pale ghosts, before I break thy 
precepts, O adored chastity ! O sacred law, 
which shall ever be dear to my heart ! My hus- 
band enjoyed my first love; and untouched shall 
it ever remain with him in the tomb." Having 
spoken thus, she filled the breast of her sister 
with tears. 

Eliza replies: "What! notwithstanding so ma- 
ny charms, dcst thou desire never to end thy 
widowhood, but always to deliver up the spring 



156 DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. 

of thy life, to mourning and sorrow ? What ! 
wilt thou always remain a stranger to love and 
to Hymen, and avoid those endearing appellations 
of, Spouse and Mother? What good can arise 
from this conduct? Dost thou believe, that thy 
husband, in the grave, so much lamented, can re- 
ceive any pleasure from thy mourning? Until 
this day, indeed, I wish, that no attachment in 
Libya, at Sidon, should flatter thy heart ; that 
Iarbus, and various other chiefs, inured to battle, 
should receive from thy lofty soul nothing but 
contempt: but shouldst thou resist that love 
which delights thee? W T hat! does no danger 
to thy kingdom excite alarm ? Behold here the 
Getulian, unmatched in battle, the unprincipled 
Numidian, who borders on thy territories; there, 
what vast deserts expose thee to the incursions of 
the Barceans, inured to horrid ravages; behold 
also the Syrians who inhabit the sandy desert; 
what shall I say of Tyre, and thy enraged bro- 
ther, who will soon advance to our shores, and 
besiege us ? For my part, I believe that Juno, 
our protectress, and all the gods, who are friend- 
ly to the Tyrian ramparts, have sent the Trojan 
fleet to our aid. O my sister! how much wilt 
thou, with their aid, augment the strength of this 
city! What will not our people now venture to 



DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. 15/ 

perform, aided by the children of Troy, and the 
son of Venus ! But to render our gods propitious* 
come, and offer up with me pompous sacrifices; 
the region of winter offers thee the means of 
gaining over the Trojans by kindness to thy 
views; point out its rigour, the dangers of ship- 
wreck, the shattered vessels, and the stormy hea- 
vens." 

These few words increase the flame already burn- 
ing; they inspire hope into the wavering heart, and 
relax the bonds of severe modesty: the queen 
now repairs with her sister to offer up her vows 
to the gods whom she adores : she implores hea- 
ven to favour her love, and offers up sacrifices of 
a chosen flock to the god who perfumes all 
around with ambrosia, to Ceres, to Phoebus; and, 
above all, to Juno, she who consecrates the hy- 
meneal union. The queen presents herself, with a 
cup in her hand, dazzling with gracefulness, 
beauty, and love; pours out the liquor on the 
forehead of a heifer, and marches before the 
gods, whom she* secretly implores, around the 
altars adorned with garlands; sacrifice succeeds 
to sacrifice, and she eagerly investigates the en- 
trails cf the flocks, anxious to receive a favour- 
able presage. Deceitful presages! which she in 



158 DESCRIPTIONS OP LOVE. 

vain believes that she reads! Alas! what can 
incense, vows, altars, and all their vain assistance 
perform, against the burning fervour of her love ? 
a fervour, which seduces and constantly con- 
sumes her, which undermines, and softens her 
heart, which rages through all her veins. In this 
manner, the unfortunate queen endeavours, by a 
thousand vain attempts, to escape from the burn- 
ing rage by which she is consumed; as the shep- 
herd, who pursues the hind, bounding in the Cre- 
tan woods, and protected in vain by her peaceful 
retreat, if, by chance, one of his arrows smite 
her, the stag, flying over hills, and rocks, and 
woods, seeks in vain to escape her cruel fate: 
she carries every-where about with her the dart, 
and death. 

At one time, the amorous Dido displays, within 
the walls, to her hero, the treasures of Sidon; 
shows her city prepared to receive him ; begins 
to speak to him, and immediately checks herself; 
at another, she orders other banquets, and wishes 
again to hear the tale of Troy's fate; and the 
new recital of the woes of Troy from the mouth 
of the warrior agitates her heart; but scarcely has 
he left her presence, scarcely have the stars in the 
glowing firmament retired to rest, and the weary 



DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. 159 

eye-lids of mortals have closed, when the queen 
wanders, restless, through her palace, ruminating 
on the hero; she then stretches herself on a couch, 
but she still beholds him, speaks to him, and hears 
him: and sometimes, when lulus bounds mirth- 
ful in her arms, she perceives in his features, 
those of him whom she adores; she deceives her 
heart by this unexpected charm, and, whilst em- 
bracing her son, embraces only Eneas. 

Like her, every thing languished within her 
walls; the young warrior no more exercised him- 
self in the toils of warfare; forts and towers 
were no longer seen rising in the air; the port 
was not now observed extending itself into the 
sea; the ramparts were no more raising their 
heads; every thing was at rest, and the eye be- 
held with terror, the angry menaces of their 
drooping materials. 

Aurora had abandoned the couch of Tithon, 
and, soon as its first streaks had tinged the hori- 
zon, a chosen body of young Tyrians, emulously 
issue forth, and depart from the gates. They 
hasten to attack the monsters of the woods; they 
cany javelins, toils, and nets; they all depart, 
they fly, and now the dogs which they uiv 



160 DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. 

chain, search over the fields with their burning 
nostrils. 

Dido still tarried, and her neighing courser 
rages, and bites his bridle, whitened with foam; 
the nobles, with respect, wait for her at the gate : 
she issues forth, surrounded by her brilliant 
escort; her mantle shines, embroidered with 
a double seam of gold; the gold shines on her 
quiver, and it sparkles among her fair tresses, 
bound together by a knot on her head; upon 
her alabaster knee, an emerald fixes her pur- 
ple robe, and collects its folds; at a distance, 
Eneas advances, accompanied by his son, at 
sight of whom, the queen's eyes already sparkle 
with joy; the Phrygian troops collect around 
them: the hero commands them, and raises himself 
in the midst; he marches, and he walks with 
the air and the countenance of a god. Immedi- 
ately the two brilliant escorts join. 

As appears Apollo, when abandoning the 
snows of the Lycian mountains, and the plain 
where Xanthus rolls his peaceful waves, he once 
more repairs to his beloved Delos; no sooner 
does he perceive his parent soil, than the pious 
Agatyrse, the numerous Cretans, and the Driopes, 
renew T their solemn dances, and join in the gene- 



DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. 1G1 

ral Chorus; carry him up to Cynthus, where 
they encircle his majestic forehead with the green 
diadem of the laurel, which he loves; while his 
tinkling arrows resound upon his back. Such are 
the glory, the mien, the march of the hero. 

And now they scale the rugged tops of the 
mountains: the antelopes, suddenly escaping from 
their dens, hastily bound from the rocks to the 
plain; farther distant, the fleet stags and their 
wandering dams assemble together in their flight, 
and, leaving the mountains, traverse the fields in 
dusty flocks: but lulus darts forward: he de- 
parts, sparkling on a fiery courser, whom he ha- 
stens in his course, runs, flies, returns again, sets 
off, and foams with toil : he wishes to behold a 
lioness dart from the mountains, or a tiger rava- 
ging these tame flocks, that he might be able to 
bathe his javelins in more glorious blood. 

All at once, the air moans, the lightning flies, 
heaven thunders, and the rain, rushing down in 
torrents, pours along with the hail, and falls upon 
the hunters, who, all, both Trojans and Tynans, 
and even young Ascanius himself, fly to hide 
themselves under some protecting roof, while the 
rushing torrents roll from the mountains. 

M 



103 DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE, 

The Queen of Carthage and her beloved hero 
have sought the solitary shelter of a grotto: sud- 
denly the dreadful signal is given by the earth, 
while Juno consecrates the mystery of their hy- 
meneal union: the heavens roar, and dispart, 
and vomit forth flames: the Dryads roar on the 
tops of the mountains, while the flame of the 
thunder bears witness to their union. 

How many evils did this luckless day bring 
upon Dido: this day caused her death: and now 
she no longer veils from every eye her mysteri- 
ous love : honour was silent, and Dido, intoxicated 
with passion, believed that the name of marriage 
excused her weakness. 

Soon is Iarbe informed, by the monster of a 
hundred mouths, of the engagement which she 
has formed : this prince, the son of Ammon, by 
a charming nymph, whom the god had stolen 
from the people of Garamante, had, in his 
kingdom, reared by his piety a hundred altars, 
and a hundred temples to the king of heaven; 
there, sacred fires unceasing burned, display- 
ing their wondrous miracles ; there, the blood 
of numerous burnt-offerings plenteously flowed; 
there, festoons adorned a hundred stately por- 



VIRSJIIL. 




Williams del. rt Sculp 



The Queen of Carthage and her beloved hero . 

p. 162 . 



DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. 163 

ticoes: no sooner has he heard of the attach- 
ment which has injured him, than, deprived 
of reason, and full of rage, he darts forward, and 
extends his arms towards heaven. 

" Thou, who ever honourest our incense and 
our vows, when the pious Moors, propitious to 
thy views, pour out to thee the first fruits of their 
wine at their banquets! thou seest how I have 
been deceived! Is it then, my father! in vain, 
that the thunder shakes in thy hand ? Heaven ! 
that a wandering woman, arriving on the Numi- 
dian shores, who should obtain leave, from my 
pity, to build a regular city, according to the 
conditions of our treaty, should now despise my 
proferred hand, and accept of the love, the vile 
love of Eneas; and I see, escorted by lazy favour- 
ites, that effeminate prince, ridiculous Paris, sur- 
rounding his head with a Phrygian bandage, 
perfuming his hair, and proud of his conquest, 
enjoying a blessing stolen by a criminal love: 
and in vain, I cover thy altars with my 
gifts; in vain, I rejoice in calling thee my 
father." 

He said : the god hears him, and with an eye 
of wrath looks upon the city where Dido capti- 



164 DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. 

rates the hero; he now calls Mercury, and ad- 
dresses him thus: " Depart, and hastening thy 
flight to the earth, go, run, fly, my son; go, and 
with a voice of displeasure, tell my will to the 
Phrygian chief, who languishes in disgraceful 
chains in Carthage, forgetful of the states which 
fate has destined for him. Is he not that same 
hero, whose mother has promised to me, that he 
will display his virtue, when, she twice, with her 
own hands, snatched him from the rage of the in- 
human conquerors ? He, who is one day to be the 
founder of that Rome, fruitful in people, king of 
kings, sovereigns of the world, the illustrious 
successors of the heroes of Teucer, who roll in 
every region their triumphant chariots ? If he do 
not himself know the value of a glorious name, if 
he do not feel himself any thirst for glory, why 
should he deprive his son of the glorious destiny 
that awaits him? What does he expect, in the 
midst of a people who are his enemies? It is hi* 
posterity, it is the beauteous Ausonia, it is Rome, 
which awaits him in the plains of Lavinia: let 
him depart; deliver to him my sovereign com- 
mand." 

He said: Mercury has already clothed himself 
with his wings, which, by the rapid flight of their 



DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. 165 

equal sides, convey him to the earth, or the hu- 
mid plains; he takes his caduceus, that rod 
which alternately gives and takes from men the 
enlivening rays of light, conducts the pale ghosts 
to the Stygian river, exciting or dispelling sleep, 
and placing the seal of death on the extinguished 
eyes. No sooner does he arm himself with this 
rod, than he rules the sky, dispels the clouds, and 
chaces far distant the aerial storms; he departs, 
flies, and already beholds the gigantic sides and 
the shaggy front of Atlas, who, bending under 
the poles, supports heaven placed upon his im- 
mense shoulders; his forehead, unceasingly sur- 
rounded with black vapours, is adorned with 
large shaggy pines; the bounding hail attacks 
his lofty sides; his huge back whitens under tor- 
rents of snow; and a hundred roaring rivers, ex- 
pelled from his mouth, hang from his beard in 
dazzling icicles. 

Mercury balances himself a moment. on its 
top; and immediately he bends and darts to- 
wards the sea, and already feels the moist fresh- 
ness of its waves: as in his flight, the watery 
bird, who returns from searching the sandy banks 
of the sea, when flying around the fishy rocks, 
he lowers his wing, darts through the air, and 



16G DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. 

makes the water tremble : So descends, darting 
like the swift bird, the grandson of Atlas; so the 
god of Cyllene approaches, to light upon the 
African sandy shore. 

At length, he sees Carthage; there, directing 
the labourers who were rearing new walls upon 
their foundations, the hero appears to him ; upon 
his shoulder shone a mantle of Tyrian scarlet, a 
presentfrom Dido, on which, with her own hands, 
she had woven the waves of the meandering 
gold ; at his side glittered a sword, adorned with 
the shining jasper. 

The god addresses him: "What cares are 
occupying thy attention? Alas! is this the ob- 
ject of thy noble efforts? What! dost thou 
raise these hostile walls and construct their forts? 
Servile lover, resign thy command ; but first, hear 
from my lips the order supreme of him who 
rules the heavens and the earth. Why dost thou 
tarry here? What engages thy attention in these 
regions? If the proud hope of that lot which 
awaits thee, if the desire of that immense glory 
inflame not thy desire, at. least turn your eyes to 
to Ascanius, the heir of so glorious a fortune: to 
him, you owe Italy, and Rome to the world." 



DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. 167 

Having said thus, the god retires, and disappears 
in thin vapour. 

Eneas, in hearing him, U dumb with terror, hi3 
hair upon his forehead stands erect with horror : 
struck with a command so great, so formidable, 
he burns with desire to depart from these too 
amiable shores: he wishes to fly; but how ac- 
complish it? how inform the love-sick queen 
of his intention? how persuade her of its neces- 
sity? with what words shall he begin? He forms 
in his mind a hundred various methods, which he 
alternately adopts and rejects; he approves, be 
condemns, he wishes, and does not wish; he at 
length determines on a scheme, and puts an end 
to his irresolute wishes; he orders his chiefs to 
prepare their arms, to equip their ships, without 
exciting alarm; and wishes, that the Trojans, in 
finally removing, may disguise the preparations 
for their approaching departure : and whilst Dido, 
so tender and faithful, doubts not of the reality 
of his ardent love, he believes that he will seize 
some favourable opportunity; he figures to him- 
self the place, the occasion, and the words he 
will employ, and finally, every thing that can 
manage her weakness. He now gives orders, and 
every one hastens and flies at his voice. 



163 DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. 

But, alas! how is it possible to deceive the 
heart of a lover ? The queen has already had 
some presentiment of her misfortune : her soul was 
even alarmed without a cause ; but she soon hears, 
by report, which first divulged her hapless love, 
that the strangers prepare the most frightful 
stroke to her heart, and that their fleet is ready 
to sail from her ports. Immediately, deprived of 
reflection, hurried on by rage, she darts forward, 
and hastens to the breast of her ramparts; like 
the nymph of Bacchus with dishevelled hair, soon 
as she hears his voice, soon as Evoe calls her, in- 
spired by the god, and rolling her black eyes, 
whilst raging with fury, she darts to Cytheron, 
and delights in the nocturnal symphony of mu- 
sical sounds. 

The queen, at length, finding Eneas: '" Ah! 
barbarous wretch ! hast thou thought to conceal 
the horror and destruction that await me? Dost 
thou endeavour secretly to betray me, and to fly 
from me? What! will not the gift of my hand, 
my heart, and my faith, restrain thee? Will not 
, the death of Dido, her premature destruction, 
which vi ill soon succeed to thy flight, will no- 
thing, ungrateful man restrain thee? And at 
what season dost thou depart! when the south 



DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. 169 

winds, let loose, prohibit the mariners from 
ploughing the waves? Ah! cruel wretch! if, 
instead of seeking after shores, strange and un- 
known, or the abodes of the savage, Troy still 
called thee, wouldst thou, to search after that 
Troy, brave the dangers of the wintry ocean ? Is 
it me you fly from? Ah! by thy hand so dear, 
thy hand, the sole good, which, in my misery, 
still remains to me, by my tears which thou be- 
holdest, thou whom I have so ardently loved, by 
our marriage, no sooner concluded than destroy- 
ed, if any attractions, or even benefits of mine, 
have merited thy heart, ah ! to recognise them, 
take pity on my sorrow, my city, my subjects; 
and, if it be still possible, renounce thy inten- 
tion ; for thee have I excited the wrath of twen- 
ty kings, and have even ventured to bear the an- 
ger of my subjects; for thee alone have I lost 
that inestimable treasure, my glory and my in- 
nocence which elevated me to the gods; and 
thou wishest to leave me! Dear guest! ah! I 
beseech thee by this name, which, of my spouse 
is the only one that remains; if thou fliest, how 
dreadfully shall I be left alone? To what fate 
dost thou leave the expiring Dido? what will 
befall her? My brother will destroy Carthage; 
and I shall remain the dreadful prey of Iarbus,the 



170 DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. 

conqueror ! If, before your departure, some dear 
pledge of ray 'love had crowned our marriage 
rites, had been caressed in my arms, and nourish- 
ed in my breast; if an infant Eneas had dis- 
played to my view the features of his father, 
and amused himself in my sight, and my court, 
I should not, alas ! have, at once, been left wholly 
destitute !" 

The hero, whose heart wavers at these words, 
feels rising in his bosom all the violence of his 
love; but he remembers the command of Jove, 
and he represses the dear emotions of his heart. 
At length, he replies : « Never, O queen ! shall 
I forget the influence of thy love, thy generous 
aid, thy multiplied favours, while a spark of life 
animates my frame ! In few words shall I explain 
to you my conduct. I do not pretend to disguise 
my flight; I have not come hither to engage my- 
self in bonds, which will attach your happiness 
to my miserable fate: if heaven had granted me 
my wish, I should never have left my unfortunate 
city; I should long ere now have re-built the 
palace of Priam and our beloved walls; but I am 
ordered by Apollo to repair to Italy; an oracle 
appoints me to visit the Italian shore; there am 
I bound to fix my lot, my country, and my gods. 



DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. 1?1 

if you yourself prefer these shores to those of Si- 
don, why should we delight in the Ausonian 
fields ? May I not, like you, found a colony ? 
Scarcely has night spread her black mantle over 
the sky, scarcely have the stars lighted up their 
fires, when, in my sleep, the angry image of my 
father, agitates and alarms me, with anxious com- 
mands; and my son, whom, notwithstanding the 
decrees of fate, I have deprived of his rights and 
the Latian sceptre, beseeches me to yield to this 
dreadful command; and, at length, mine eyes 
have beheld the heavenly messenger; he himself, 
traversing the aerial fields, has come to repeat to 
me the order of Jove. I swear to you, by them 
both! I have beheld (O miracle!) the god him- 
self; his voice has even reached mine ear! 
Cease then, ah ! cease, by a mournful discourse, 
to increase both your sorrow and my own; my 
soul, alas! is already but too much affected! Yes, 
Dido, contrary to my wish, am I compelled to 
leave thee/* 

He said; and already, burning with rage, 
Dido rolls on him her sparkling eye; she angrily 
surveys him, and, with a voice of thunder, thus 
pours forth her foaming rage : 



172 DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. 

" And thou art the descendant of gods and 
heroes ! Venus is thy mother, and thou descend- 
est from Troas ! Thou, perfidious wretch ! ah L 
I yield to the rage which consumes me ! Tigers 
have nourished thee, barbarian; and the fright- 
ful rocks of Caucasus have vomited thee forth 
from their sides ! Why should I be deceived ? 
Alas ! has he even sighed ? has he displayed the 
smallest regret ? What ! will nothing affect 
him ! What ! not even an expression of sorrow, 
no sigh, no tear ! O Heaven ! which of these 
numerous injuries is the most cruel. And how 
shall I put up with this insolent refusal ? And 
Juno, who beholds his crime, absolves him ! 
And Jupiter in heaven suffers his thunder to 
slumber ! Now, is there an end of faith, and 
honour ! Wandering, deprived of aid, I re- 
ceived the ungrateful wretch. Ah ! I have done 
every thing for him ! I save his Trojans, I 
collect them together, and I give him (fool that 
I was) my heart, my bed, and my throne : and 
now, O fury ! O daughter of hell ! behold 
Destiny, Jupiter, Apollo, all the gods, profuse 
with their miracles, teaching them, I know not 
what, vengeance against me ! And behold Mer- 
cury dictates to this odious monster, a dreadful 
order, in the name of the king of gods. The 



DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. l7o 

gods ! they may well be careful of so frivolous 
a matter ! I will not longer retain thee, per- 
fidious wretch ! Go, run, fly, go break thy 
tows, crown thy treachery, and far distant from 
me, trusting to the waves, seek thy new shores : 
I trust, at least, that if there be any god who 
avenges crimes, he will throw you upon a rock, 
he will plunge you into the deep, and there, re- 
ceiving the reward of thy cruel abandonment of 
Dido, thou wilt a hundred times call upon her 
name in thy last moments ! Dido murdered, and 
constantly present in thy sight ! Dido, who will 
present to thee her bleeding ghost. Yes ! thou 
shalt die, as a punishment for thy breach of 
faith ; and the fame of thy destruction shall 
reach me even in hell." 

At these thundering words, pronounced by 
her rage, the queen interrupts herself, flies, and 
prevents the reply of the astonished hero, who, 
ready to speak, is confused, hesitates, and fears 
to express himself; she falls at length, under 
her furious rage, and is placed, insensible, by 
her women on a couch. 

Eneas still wishes to behold, to console her : 
Eneas, alas ! not less than herself, feels agita- 



174 DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. 

tion : his inconquerable love rises rebellious id 
his bosom ; but his duty always opposing his 
affection, he returns to his fleet, and all his peo- 
ple, animated by his presence, redouble their 
efforts ; the shores resound to the thundering 
hammers, and the vessels are launched into the 
agitated waves; the trees, scarcely shapen by the 
axe, and still covered with moss and leaves, are 
cut into oars, are quickly removed, are dressed, 
and fixed in their places, as rafters or as masts; 
they assemble on the shore, they run from every 
quarter; all the Trojans have, in a body, quit- 
ted the walls. 

Thus, when the ants, fearing famine, dili- 
gently plunder a heap of corn, thinking to pro- 
vide for the approaching winter, they are agitated 
with their important business : the black legion 
carry between the herbs, the spoil of the sheaves, 
by a strait path; there, several, uniting their 
strength, and moving at once, roll the enormous 
mass of some grains of corn : here, some obey, 
there, some command ; and if there be any who 
remain idle, they are swallowed up by one of 
the chiefs ; no one is allowed to be slothful ; 
twenty paths on the open turf are covered with 
eager labourers, from every quarter. 



DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. 175 

What were thy thoughts, O Dido ! when thy 
eyes beheld the numerous Phrygians hastening 
to the shore ? When the horrid echoes of the 
sailors' noise reached thy palace ? Ah ! how 
painfully did the glad shouts of the children of 
Pergamus sound in thy ears ! O Love ! what 
pain dost thou bring to the human breast ? The 
unhappy queen now shed tears plentifully, 
groaned, still farther humbled her proud heart; 
from contempt and pride, descended to entreaty, 
to supplication, and, submitting herself wholly to 
the influence of love, determined to make a last 
effort, if it should deprive her of life. 

" You behold them, O Elisa! running with 
joy to the shore ; already are their sails unfurl- 
ed ; and the prows of their vessels crowned with 
flowers. If I had been prepared- for this inex- 
pressible misfortune, I should have supported it 
with fortitude ; but, notwithstanding my misery, 
perhaps still . . . Alas ! in thee alone have I now 
any hope ; go, and find him ; he loves thee ; 
yes, thou alone art agreeable to the ungrateful 
wretch : skilfully thou knowest how to chuse the 
happy moment for making an impression on hi* 
heart. Now then, my sister, I beseech thy aid ; 
beseech, entreat, for me, the proud conqueror 



176 DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. 

of my heart : lay before him the depth of my 
sorrow. With what can he reproach me ? I 
have never sworn in Aulida to join my hatred to 
that of Atrides ; have my vessels in Pergamus 
been clothed in mourning ? have I dragged his 
father from his peaceful grave ? Why does he 
shut his inexorable heart against me ? Where 
does he go ? Let him wait for a more favourable 
wind : this is all I ask, as the price of my ardent 
love. I do not now talk of our marriage, of my 
forsaken and despised bed. No ; let the un- 
grateful wretch forget me ; let him, 1 consent to 
it, reign in his beloved Italy. But let him at 
least give me time to breathe, although I should 
have no hope ; he shall see me weep, and endea- 
vour to sustain my grievous misfortune. Go ; 
run ; ah ! take pity on thy wretched sister. 
Time, only a little time; this is all I require; 
let him grant me this request, and my death will 
soon follow to crown his wishes." 

Such were her words ; and her unhappy sister 
hastened to pour them into the ears of Eneas ; but 
he remains fixed in his design, and inexorable ; 
a god shuts his heart against prayers and tears. 
As a lofty oak, when the dark tempest roars 
from every quarter, and beats upon its head, 



. 



DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. 177 

when the frightful rage of the howling north 
wind bends its lofty branches, and attacks its 
stately trunk, immovable, and in vain deprived 
of its extensive foliage, it stands upon its rock, 
and fatigues the storm ; and, as on high, its top 
rules the air, so its deep roots penetrate to the 
lower regions. Thus, Eneas, assailed by a thou- 
sand vain lamentations, magnanimously resists 
and supports his regret : he triumphs, while 
tears in vain fill his eyes. 

The queen, meanwhile, trembles, and beholds 
the whole extent of her misfortune : she calls on 
death to deliver her from the woe which, this 
day, whose odious light is hateful, has now 
brought upon her ; and in the vow, which pro- 
ceeds from her gloomy rage, frightful signs 
cause her heart to shudder. On the altar, dread- 
ful prodigy ! whilst offering up sacrifice, and 
when she is pouring out the first fruits of the 
pure wane, she observes the liquor suddenly 

assume a black colour, that of blood This 

secret remains shut up in her bosom : she even 
conceals it from her sister. Her palace contains 
a sanctuary, consecrated by herself to the me- 
mory of her former husband, and decorated, by 
her own hands, with snow-white fleece. There, 
N 



178 DESCRIPTIONS OF I*OVE. 

when the night has scattered around her thick 
darkness, the Queen hears her husband send 
forth a doleful, lamentable cry from the dark 
profound; she hears an owl, seated on the dim 
roo£ pouring forth, in a mournful voice, her dis- 
mal complaints ; the numberless presages of an- 
cient priests and horrible visions redouble her 
terror ; she believes herself wandering on an 
unknown path, where, alone, abandoned, she 
calls for Eneas, among frightful desarts. So the 
raging Pentheus, in similar transports, believes 
that lie beholds two Citherons, two Thebes, and 
two suns ; believes, that he runs round, whilst 
crying, under the scourge of the furies ; or, as 
when, on the tragic scence, expiating horrible 
crimes, Orestes, terrified, as his mother extends 
to him her bloody arm, her torches, her poniards, 
her livid snakes— flies, and beholds the Eume- 
nides seated on the threshold. 

The unhappy queen, at length, worn out 
with suffering, gives herself up to despair, and 
prepares for death : she hides, in her own breast, 
the best season and means to render her great 
sacrifice propitious : and now, finding her sister, 
she disguises her intention, and hope smiles in 
her countenance, while death is in her heart. 



DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. 1/9 

" I have found, my dear sister, (applaud 
me/*) says she, " a mean by which I will soon 
renounce my love, and be delivered from my 
cruel grief. From those distant shores, where 
the day expires, where the earth sets op its 
limits, where the pole commences, where Atlas 
supports the immense load of the stars, a priest- 
ess arrives, to whom is confided the golden trea- 
sures of the temple of Hesperus. It is she from 
whose hands, the dragon, who guards this rich 
treasure, receives the honey and the poppies, 
which assuage his hunger. If I may believe 
her tale, she can, by her powerful art, influence 
the souls of lovers, and excite or allay the most 
ardent love : her commands can darken the lu- 
minaries of the sky, can raise the dead from 
their tombs, can force even the rivers to cease 
from flowing. She can force the earth to shake 
to its deepest foundations, and the forests to de- 
scend from their mountains. I call heaven to 
witness, I obtest thee thyself; yes, thee my 
tender sister ! who cherishest me, and whom I 
love, that, contrary, to my wish, I have been 
irresistibly led to have recourse to these sad se- 
crets. Go, then ; order a funeral pile to be 
erected in the hidden recess, at the bottom of my 
palace; let the helmet and the arms of the 



ISO DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. 

traitor be placed there, on that bed of Hymen, 
which, alas ! has been to me the source of so 
many tears ; that bed, which has been my de- 
struction ; and let us burn every thing belong- 
ing to the odious monster, that they may no 
more be present to my sight/' 

In finishing these words, which it cost her 
some exertion to utter, she becomes pale, and 
falls into a dreadful silence : her sister believes 
her discourse, and suspects not, that it is used 
only to disguise her fatal intention. So dreadful 
a calamity is far from her thoughts ; she con- 
ceives not, that this offended soul even now me- 
ditates a more horrible disaster, than if heaven 
had snatched away by death her husband. 

She obeys ; and she carefully prepares, in the 
depth of the palace, that structure on which the 
fatal sacrifice is to be offered up. An immense 
pile rises in the air, and the cypress, on every 
side, hangs its green boughs. On the top of the 
pile, the queen wishes to be placed the portrait 
of the Trojan, and his helmet, and his buckler ; 
his sword is borne by Dido, who turns pale, and, 
with a trembling hand, places it on the pile : 
altars surround it; and now the priestess, the 



DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. 181 

tresses of her black hair flowing dishevelled, 
invokes Chaos, Hecate with the triple forehead, 
Erebus, and all the gods of the horrible Ache- 
rontes ; dark waters, stagnant in deep fossae, re- 
present the waters at the foot of Averne ; she 
presses out a black juice from horrid vegetables, 
which she had cut, by the light of the moon, 
with a scythe; besides other juices, unknown to 
the profane vulgar, she also adds the hippomanes 
of the growing stallion, a conquest procured 
from maternal affection. Dido now standing, 
her hand towards the altar, her feet naked, her 
eyes lifted up to heaven, her forehead pale, her 
countenance motionless, and expressing a fright- 
ful, though tranquil, despair, suffering the folds 
of her robe to fall at her feet : Dido, now about 
to yield to her fate, takes the gods, the authors 
of her destruction, to witness : " And if there 
be one who is propitious to the unhappy, who 
protects those luckless mortals, whose affections 
are betrayed, let him now be a just avenger !" 
Such were her last vows. 

Night covers the earth, and Sleep, with her 
salutary freshness, restores to man his pristine 
vigour ; the waters were at rest ; the woods were 
silent : it was the hour when, in the heavenly 



182 DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. 

sphere, the stars had travelled half of their 
nocturnal course, when, in the hollow valleys, 
by the limpid fountains, the brutes, and the 
many-coloured birds, forgot their toils, slept 
away their sorrows, and tranquilly enjoyed, in 
profound peace, the charms of sleep, that re- 
storer of the world. But nothing could dispel 
the sorrows of Dido ; for her eyes, for her 
heart, no more peaceful nights. Now love, pos- 
sessing her whole soul, excites deep groans ; 
and now her wounded pride rises with new vi- 
gour in her breast, and rouses the agitating 
emotions of burning rage ; and she thus ex- 
presses her sorrowful emotions: 

u What shall I do, O ye gods ! Must I, now 
contemned, become the derision of my former 
lovers ? Must I now become a suppliant, and 
implore the hands of those kings, who have 
been so long the objects of my disdain. Must 
I, in the ship of the traitor who contemns me, 
become the unworthy slave of his meanest sol- 
diers ? Yes ; let us hasten to yield ourselves 
up to those generous hearts, who are so exceed- 
ingly grateful for the benefits which I have 
heaped upon them. Let us resign ourselves to 
their chief, to his extreme affection ; and even 



DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. 183 

were I willing to do so, would he desire it? 
Could I procure an interview ? would he deign 
to see me ? Would his proud vessels condescend 
to receive me ? Unhappy wretch that I am ! 
what new injury do I await, to judge of the vil- 
lany of this perjured race ! Shall I go, and, 
alone, implore the kindness of insolent sailors, 
or drag my people after them on the waves ? 
Shall I be able to drag those to the Hesperian 
shores, whom I could, with difficulty induce, to 
leave their native land ? Why do I not weep 
any more ? I may weep ; I have deserved to 
do so. Let this sword relieve me from such 
cruel indignities. Alas ! my sister ! it is thee, 
thy pity, that has seduced me : it is thee that 
has reduced me to this dreadful state ! Why 
did I yield to my cruel enemy ? W r hy form a 
criminal connection with him ? Why hast thou, 
my sister, given me up to my frightful delirium ? 
I might have lived happy, innocent, honoured, 
and faithful in my severe pride to my husband. 
Alas! I have broken the faith that I had pledged 
to his ashes V* 

In this manner, tormenting her heart, her 
restrained grief broke forth in sighs ; whilst 
Eneas, having ordered the preparations for his 



184 DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. 

departure, resigned himself, on the poop of his 
vessel, to the influence of sleep, when Mercury, 
returning in his former shape, again appeared 
to the hero in a dream : it was his voice, his 
shape, his mild, majestic air, his shining locks, 
the glory of his youthful beauty. 

" What \" says he, " thou art asleep ! and 
dost thou not fear some treachery ? Thou sleep- 
est, and beholdest not the danger which sur- 
rounds thee ! Senseless chief! thou art asleep, 
while the winds call thee to the ocean ; thou 
suflferest the most precious moments to escape 
thee ; and pido, raging, and ready to expire 
with fury, already meditates a horrible deed. 
What ! thou dost not depart, while in thy 
power ! If Aurora behold thee on these shores, 
thou wilt perceive the shores shining with armed 
foes, and the sea covered with the whiteness of 
their ships. Go, then, fly ; delay no more ; 
and prevent every danger. Woman is ever 
ready to change her resolutions." 

Having spoken thus, the god disappeared in 
the bosom of the darkness of night. The hero 
is afraid, though surrounded by deep darkness, 
and arising, runs to his people, who were asleep : 



DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. 185 

he awakes them. " Let us go immediately; let 
us depart, my friends; let our sails be instantly 
unfurled to the breeze ; a god (sent by Jupiter 
himself) has just now appeared to me: he urges 
my departure; I obey the great god. Whoever 
thou art, I follow thy kind advice; and cause 
thou, I beseech thee, the favourable stars of hea- 
ven to shed on us their benign influence \" Now, 
his destructive sword shines in his hand, and, 
with it, he strikes and cuts their cable; the rest 
imitate his conduct, and all quickly depart; they 
rush into the waves, and with the stroke of their 
oars, cause the waters of the deep to roar; 
the port recedes, and the sea is covered with 
sails. 

Aurora, meanwhile, arose from the bosom of the 
waters; soon as the day returns, the queen, not 
hearing the accustomed tumultuous noise and 
roaring clamour of the rowers in the harbour 
looks out, and beholds, far distant from the shore, 
the fugitive vessels. Pale, and, at last, convinced 
of the flight of Eneas, and striking her beauteous 
bosom, and tearing her hair, she thus exclaims: 
"What! the traitor — has fled; and why have 
not my vessels pursued him ? Depart, run to the 
harbour, seize your oars, and sails, and soldiers, 



186 DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. 

and sailors, and flames — What do I say? O 
heaven ! where am I ? Useless rage ! imprudent 
Dido ! behold thy fate ! Thou feelest thyself at 
present unfortunate! thou shouldst have acted 
more prudently before thy marriage, and not 
have resigned thy sceptre and thy hand. But, 
behold he was a just and humane hero, who saved 
his gods and his venerable father from destruc- 
tion, and who said, that he bowed under their 
honourable load ! Could I not have seized this 
traitor, and torn him to pieces? Could I not have 
made a bloody feast of his Ascanius, and present- 
ed him smoking to the lips of his father? What 
withheld me ? the danger? Danger ! is there any 
danger for those who wish for death ? I should 
have fired his camp, and covered it with carnage ; 
I should have sunk his vessels, and, in my fury, 
I should have destroyed the father, and his son, 
and the whole of their odious people ; whilst I 
myself should have breathed my last. 

* Thou, O sun ! who beholdest the whole uni- 
verse, look upon my injury ! Juno, thou witness 
of the desires and oaths of perjury! Hecate, 
who, in thy nocturnal rites, hearest the noise of 
the walls of dismal cities ! Ye terrible gods of 
the dead, Pluto and the triple fury, gods of the 



DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. 187 

•xpiring Dido! to you she addresses herself. O, 
strike the guilty wretch ! Or, if fate ordain that 
he should find a friendly port, if this should be 
the irrevocable decree of Jupiter, let him at least 
be attacked by an inconquerable people, and let 
him behold his soldiers unworthily destroyed; let 
him behold his son snatched from his arms; and 
may he himself, forced to accept a disgraceful 
peace, and, leading an unsettled, stormy life, die 
before his time; and, after his death, may his bo- 
dy be given, as a dreadful repast, to the vultures !" 
Behold what imprecations Dido issues forth 
against an impious wretch, with her rage, her 
blood, and her life. * And thou, O Carthage ! 
hear my dreadful vows: Persecute this traitor 
to his latest posterity. I bequeath to thee my 
hatred; let there be no truce betwixt you; 
let them be every-where pursued by lire and 
sword, and let them be all immolated in fury 
to my injured shade. And may an implacable 
avenger spring from my ashes, and pursue, with 
destruction, that ill-fated people; let our rival 
walls, and fleets, from this day henceforth, both 
by sea and land, arm the winds, the waves, the 
fire, and the sword ; may the waves, the fire, and 
the sword devour them, and may our latest pos- 
terity continue to exterminate them!" 



188 DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. 

Thus she spoke, and prepares, in her furious 
heart, the scheme by which she was to deprive 
herself of life; and, beholding the favourite nurse 
of her husband, Barce, (hers had died before in 
her own country,)—" Go my dear Barce/' said 
she, mildly; " run, and dispose my sister to 
assist my vows ; tell her to hasten, and purify 
herself, and bring the presents ordered by the 
priestess. Let her see the holy flocks conducted 
to the altars; and adorn thou thy forehead with 
an august bandage. I intend to finish, far from 
profane intrusion, my sacrifice offered to the so- 
vereign of the shades. I intend, in order to burst 
an unworthy tie, to consume in the flames, the 
funeral pile of the Trojan. " She said, and Barce, 
trembling with age, zealously hastened her tot- 
tering steps. 

But Dido, agitated with furious transport, roll- 
ing her blood-stained eyes, her countenance dis- 
figured with wandering spots, which stain her 
cheek, and her trembling lips, sad, and her face 
already clothed in paleness, the sad precursor of 
the death about to ensue, runs, flies towards her 
palace, and, with palpitating rage, darts towards 
her funeral pile; therewith a trembling hand, 
she seizes the sword of her lover, an employ- 



DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. 189 

ment which her heart, in more fortunate times, 
would not have desired. But no sooner has she 
beheld the arms of the hero, and that bed, for- 
merly the scene of so much joy, than her de- 
spair gives way to the most tender grief, and, 
for a moment, tears have once more found a 
passage to her eyes ; and now, pressing her 
couch with the most tender kisses, she utters 
these words, these last words : 

'< Ye spoils, formerly dear to my heart, when 
my kinder destiny allowed ms to be happy, 
now, at length deliver me from an unhappy 
love, and let me breathe out my soul on these 
cherished gifts. I have lived, and for me, every 
thing is irrevocably finished : Dido will have 
no occasion to blush for herself among the dead. 
I have founded the power of a great city; I 
knew how to revenge the death of a husband. 
Happy, too happy, alas ! would I have been, 
had the Trojans never appeared on the Tyrian 
shores !" And now, pressing her face on her sad 
couch, " What I" said she, " shall I die with- 
out avenging my injury ? Yes ! without doubt, 
let me confine myself to my vow; yes, I wish, 
even in dying, to pardon him ; I wish that the 
perfidious Phrygian may behold, from afar, thi* 



190 DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. 

murderous flame, and carry with him the pre- 
sage of my death. " She said, and now un- 
sheathed the sword ; she stabs herself, and falls : 
her women, amazed at beholding the blood- 
stained sword, run with dishevelled hair, and 
raise, throughout the palace, lamentable cries, 
which resound along the ceiling of the exten- 
sive court. And now Carthage, learn from their 
mouths, the dreadful news of their disaster ! 
Nothing, on every hand, is heard, but sighs 
and deep groans. The women raise, in the air, a 
lamentable noise, as if the enemy had already 
forced the gates, and scattered their troops on 
every hand; as if their palaces and temples, 
devoured by fire, sunk under their vaults ! At 
the noise of this sudden, unexpected tragedy, 
Elisa . . . she darts forward, she runs, nearly 
bereft of reason, tearing her hair, and smiting 
her breast. " O my sister ! O Dido ! what ! 
this dreadful intent, this pile, these altars, all 
these barbarous preparations. ...What! hast thou 
thus separated thyself from thy faithful sister! 
Have you thus deceived me ! have }'ou thus been 
desirous to leave me ! Have you, alas ! then, 
deemed me unworthy to imitate you. This pile 
should have sufficed for our last honours; the 
stroke, the hour, the death, would have been 



DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. 191 

the same. And have I, great gods ! made these 
criminal preparations, constructed this pile, 
adorned these altars, and even invoked the gods 
of our land ! Alas ! why was I absent when 
my sister expired ! By this murder I, at the 
same time, immolate thee, thy people, thy sister, 
thy city, thy senate, the whole perishing state ! 
Hasten, and bring water, that I may at least 
bathe this deep wound ; and, should there still a 
sigh escape from her lips, let me at least receive 
it upon mine." She said, and quickly rushing 
towards the queen, held her dying sister in her 
arms, warms her with her breast, pours forth 
deep groans, and attempts to stop the streaming 
blood. Vain efforts ! the queen, endeavouring 
to open her heavy eye-lid to the light, raises it 
for a moment, and immediately shuts it again ; 
her blood escapes copiously from her breast ; 
and thrice raising herself upon her tottering 
arm, thrice she falls, and raising, for the last 
time, her eyes towards heaven, beholds the light, 
and groans at having beheld it. 



DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. 



CANTO VI. 



CONTENTS. 

Dido, herself, listens with attention to the song of Virgil. — 
Camoens begins to sing: The Lusitanians arrive at the Cape 
of Afric, the ancient boundary of the world. Venus, observ. 
ing their arrival, descends from her aerial abode, to reward 
their heroic exertions : Advises Cupid to pierce the hearts of 
the most beauteous of the Sea-nymphs, that the immortal 
Vasco, and his brave, but toil-worn, companions, may be 
reivarded for their gigantic exertions. Tethys, beauteous 
daughter of the waves, though reluctant, is overcome by the 
almighty power of Love. — Description of their delicious 
abode— The Sea-nymphs appear in all their beauty, and in- 
spire the delighted Lusitanians with rapturous desires. — 
Happiness, misfortune, and mournful fate of the beauteous 
lues.— Comparative Merits of the various Poets. — Conclu- 



DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE, 



CAMOENS. 

▼V HO can express the transports, the de- 
lirium excited by the sounds of Virgil's lyre ? 
What sublime representations ! v\hat various 
sentiments ! From what a fine imagination must 
these charming verses have proceeded ! Never 
was poesy seen to produce such powerful effects. 
Milton, Racine, Homer, and Euripides, delighted 
with the strains, admired their sublime beauties. 
Dido, herself, in the midst of the brilliant au- 
dience, listened attentively to her mournful 
story, sighed at the recital of her sorrows, while 
her eyes were often filled with delicious tears. 
Near her, the faithful Sicheus was observed, 



196 DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. 

displaying to her the most tender regard. But 
how did this kind of love difter from that plea- 
sure, with which the perfidious Eneas had filled 
her heart ! She no more loves him, her affec- 
tion is extinguished, yet the inextinguishable 
traces of grief are imprinted on her features, and 
her fire of love has dried up the source of her 
tears. What then, O Heaven ! is the nature of 
this horrible despair ? this terrible fever excited 
by the transports of love ? Even I myself 
tremble, and my agitated bosom is filled with a 
pleasurable pain. Yes! I feel that, wearied as I 
am with more violent emotions, I now require 
to experience those which are more gentle. Well, 
then ! I shall proceed to employ my lighter 
pencils. O, ye Naiades ! open your liquid ar- 
bours! Ye Tritons ! conduct me under their bril- 
liant vaults ! Love, whom I have been celebrating, 
will there point out to me the road ; Love flies 
every-where ; vain is the attempt to escape him. 
He throws the Sylvan into the arms of the 
Dryad : in her deep thickets, Diana offers up 
her virgin-pride to her laughing Menalus ; 
whether Pan suddenly surprise her, and dragging 
her away, punish, with his lascivious attempts, 
her disdain; or, whether she, thoughtful, wander 
to the depth of the wood, and darting thither 



DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. 197 

the rays of her amorous light, imprint with 
her silver lips trembling kisses on the forehead 
of the shepherd, whom she there beholds reclin- 
ing ; nothing escapes this god, whose cruel 
arrows have doomed even the immortals to en- 
dure human sorrows. And, if we believe the 
song of Camoens, human beings have overcome 
even the deity of the sea. And thou, O Muse, 
who hast related to me this delightful story, lend 
me, I beseech thee, thy lute, or thy sweetly - 
speaking lyre ; thus shall I rehearse the delight- 
ful song which this poet, in his happy delirium, 
chaunted to the listening and delighted shades ! 

No sooner had the people hastily poured 
forth from their dark thickets, and eagerly ga- 
thered around him, than Camoens thus com- 
menced his song: 

" At the end of the world, the ancient African 
Cape, hoary-headed boundary of the ocean, 
had beheld the Lusitanians braving his dreadful 
passage, and triumphing over his imbecile rage. 
Vasco was leading them back from the regions, 
where the sun leaves his vermilion couch, to 
light up the heavens; and the hero, burning with 
desire to behold his native land, venture,d once 



198 DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. 

more to encounter the fury of the Cape, when, 
from the aerial abodes, charming Cypris, dis- 
covering the sails of her beloved favourites; 
" I must," says she, «* I must now proceed to 
distribute to them, the just recompence of their 
immense labours/' An enchanting project now 
occupies her thoughts. She departs, she flies, 
and endeavours to find her son. 

Already has her car alighted on the Idalian 
mount ; the troop of the laughing loves now 
assembles ; the son of Venus, smiling, rushed 
into the arms of his mother. " Dear Cupid ! 
thou knowest, that my people have conducted 
their intrepid vessels to the eastern shores. The 
fortunate Vasco, carried by their rapid wings, 
has penetrated even to Indus, and merits the 
reward of his great exertions, undertaken to 
please me. Inflame thou the most beauteous of 
the sea-nymphs : lead them to resign their re- 
bellious hearts to my Lusitanians. For my part, 
I shall take care to guide my young favourites 
towards a delightful island, where Pomona and 
Chloris shall enrich the plains with their richest 
treasures. Tliere shall I present to them those 
charming Sirens, who will seduce their attentions, 
enframe their hearts, and profusely bestow on 



DESCRIPTIONS OF LO\ t.. 199 

them my dearest favours. But, chiefly, it is thy 
province to insure me of victory." 

Love, at these words, seized the ivory of his 
bow, placed himself upon his mother's car, and 
Cycnus carries him swiftly through the air with 
Venus. No sooner had they reached the wished- 
for shore, the boundary of the abode of the 
daughters of Nereus, than Cupid bends his bow; 
an arrow immediately flies, and, plunging through 
the waters, strikes a palpitating heart: a hundred 
others soon follow, and with their cruel points, 
enter the bosoms of the youthful fair immortals. 
They now send forth a thousand tender sighs : 
their souls inflamed with a hundred vague desires, 
they view, in imagination, the brilliant conquests 
of the Lusitanians, their courage, which over- 
came the giant of the tempest, of that African 
Cape, which, raising itself against them, frighten- 
ed them at the sight of its living rocks; and 
which, under their vessels, explorers of worlds, 
beheld its rage expire, and its waves held in sub- 
jection. 

But the beauteous Tethys remained still to be 
overcome. Love had never yet conquered her; 
he felt indignant, he raged at so vain a pride : 



200 DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. 

" Soon shalt thou suffer for thy contempt of me." 
He said ; and, armed with his bow, he suddenly 
stretches out his arm, while he draws the cord 
towards his breast: the bow is bent, the point of 
the arrow scarcely touches; it slackens, and 
suddenly the cord, which it brings again, groans, 
the arrow departs, whizzing, and plunges furi- 
ously into the breast of Tethys, whose heart it 
pierces. At length she is totally overcome. 
Open your gates, ye deep waters, open your 
gates, and receive the daughter of the waves ! 
for, behold, she descends, revisiting her natal bed, 
her grottoes, her vaults, and her palaces of crys- 
tal! She comes to teach to the youthful immor- 
tals, the delightful art of healing their cruel 
wounds: she persuades, and at length conducts 
them to an island, where, the roses and the lilies, 
on every hand, adorned three high hills with fes- 
toons, breathing the most delicious perfume: 
there, rivulets meeting and blending themselves 
together, fell, boiling in cascades, and poured in- 
to a lake their transparent tribute. 

A thousand trees, the beauteous border of its 
banks, admire in its bosom their floating ver- 
dure. Here the orange, whose yellow fruit, daz- 
zling, emulates the white hair of Opis, loves to 



DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. 201 

shine reflected, thus doubling its riches; the ci- 
tron bends, weakened under its brilliant load, and 
sows, far distant, the gift of its opulent branches; 
and the tree which bears the mild lemons, those 
lemons which imitate the budding glories of the 
beauteous breast of Hebe, charms both the eye 
and the taste, and, through the balm-breathing 
air, spreads, far distant, the incense of its sweetly- 
smelling fruit. 

AH around, sprung up numbers of trees, vary- 
ing from each other in fruit, in branches, and in 
leaves; they formed innumerable shapes, joined 
together in bowers, stretched out into curtains, 
and accidentally bordering the crooked paths; 
there, voluptuous waters flow under their flowers, 
whose silver foam enriches the vale; there, not 
far distant from the laurel, so much cherished by 
Apollo, spring the dark pyramids of the cypress, 
the myrtle, favourite of the queen of Gnidos, the 
tree of Cybele, and the white poplar, mingle the 
hospitable shade of their foreheads; there Po- 
mona pours forth, in compliance with the vows 
of nature, a thousand fruits produced by the 
earth without culture, the cherry whose branches 
smile to the sight, the mulberry still mournful, 
the apricot of Armenia, the olive of Athens, 



202 DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. 

the apple of Persia, and the African apple, 
concealing the ruby-coloured treasure of its 
breast; and the vine of the mild fruit, who, with 
her golden grapes, adorns the amorous forehead 
of the young oak, whom she loves, and with her 
branches, abounding with green leaves, crown 
him with a diadem. All these gifts of Pomona, 
abundantly scattered around, excited the appe- 
tite, and charmed the sight. 

Flora, no less rich and beautiful in her gar- 
dens, has woven w r ith her flowers the robe of 
Cy bele ; there were to be seen, the amaranthe and 
the gilded saffron, and the flower by which Phoe- 
bus is still adored; the stately poppy near them 
slowly nods, and strews around the riches of its 
purple sides; the bending narcissus admires itself 
in a canal; the lily, shining with virgin beauty, 
disperses freely the perfumes of its lovely bead ; 
and the obscure violet, which pours forth its odour, 
while hiding its beauty under the herb, disperses, 
without displaying itself, its bashful favours. 
What shall I say of thee, Thou favourite of Flora, 
similar to the fresh bud of the expanding breast, 
with the appearance of the beauty which effaces 
thy colours? Shall I tell of those tribes, those 
families of flowers, all those brilliant lilacs, those 



Descriptions of love. 203 

tender anemonies, those pinks, proud of their 
triple crowns, and a thousand flowers beside, 
which, distributing their bounty, spread out in 
plots, and festoons, displayed their embroidery, 
and adorned the meadows with their smiling 
beauties ! The eye is doubtful, whether Aurora, 
at her charming return, owes her fresh colours 
to their dazzling beauty; or, whether these 
swarming daughters of Flora have stolen their 
colours from those of the morning. Philomel 
pours forth his melodious song, to the sweet and 
plaintive strains of the harmonious swan; the 
happy sparrow flies with an unexpected prey, 
goes, returns upon the leaf-covered branch, de- 
parts, and carries, in his bill, the insect which 
he has taken, the booty which his young ones 
call for by their cries: the majestic stag, mo- 
narch of this delightful abode, raises in peace 
his head, slowly walks, and, proudly admi- 
ring himself in the crystal waters, contemplates 
the crooked branches of his horns, feeds on the 
moss of the meadow, drinks the pure water of 
the fountain, whilst, at his side, in their playful 
sports, the fawns, the light deer, and the bound- 
ing hares anxiously engage in a hundred inno- 
cent combats. 



204 DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. 

To this delightful abode, Love and Diana had 
led the successful fleet of Vasco : here the en- 
ticing throng of the nymphs of the sea appear- 
ed to wander, without design, in the shade of the 
groves. Some emulate each other in song, 
others breathe the sweetly-speaking flute, and 
some call forth the mild tones of the lyre, the 
prelude of which gave delight from their wan- 
dering fingers. Farther distant, some, with the 
bow in their hands, raising loud shouts of joy, 
feigned to pursue their prey, whilst the most 
beauteous, preparing to plunge into the watery 
element, have already thrown ofF their vest- 
ments. What beauties are now to be displayed ! 
Fall, ye jealous robes, ye vain ornaments, fall 
upon the green turf! Glauce is no more clothed, 
and Licoris, Cymodoce, Arethusa, Alcibce, 
Chloris, and the fair Cydippe, and the brown 
Amathea, and Ctymene, and Fheruze, and 
Xanthe, and 1 Galatea, loosen their zones, — 
all hasten to display the dazzling beauty of a 
hundred treasures.; nothing escapes the kisses 
of the idolatrous breeze ; it flies, departs, re- 
turns from the rose to the alabaster, and makes 
a rapid theft from every beauty. The sea, at 
length, receives the nymphs in its bosom, car- 
ries them the embraces of all its astonished wa- 



DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. 205 

ters, and the waves rejoice at the sight of their 
goddesses. 

The heroes, meanwhile, experience a happy 
arrival, and, with a bounding leap, take posses- 
sion of the shore. They run through the woods 
with thunder-speaking arms in their hands, while 
some, anxious to avoid the heat of the shore, 
wander in peace among the flowers of the 
whitened vales ; when they unexpectedly be- 
held, through the openings of the woods, lovely 
forms shining in beauty, and immediately the 
young deities were recognised. Velos, at this 
sight, exclaims, " Stop, my friends ; look : am 
I deceived by beauteous shadows? But, no : I 
hear voices, I perceive forms. This island be- 
longs to Venus ; yes, it is Cyprus, or Paphos. 
Ye goddesses ! I follow you." Thus spoke Ve- 
los, and all his companions, imitating him, pursue 
their steps. The nymphs fled ; their gentle 
cries, their graces, their studied fear, their ami- 
able embarrassment, produced by their being 
stopped in their flight, by the branches of the 
trees, the fortunate inactivity of their tottering 
steps, have all excited the eager desires of the 
already charmed Lusitanians : The breeze also 
increases this engaging disorder ; it makes the 



200 DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. 

golden tresses of their hair to fly, it throws 
aside their thin robes, and uncovers Q sweet 
extacy ! The amorous desire takes hold of their 
hearts, devours them, and makes them wander 
through a thousand vain circuits, deceiving the 
distance by the softness of their steps. One falls 
in her flight ; another, who leaves her compa- 
nions, looks at the warriors, smiles, and shows 
them, that her fear is not so great, as her desire. 
Another, who stumbles, in suffering herself to be 
caught, feigns a violent rage, cries, implores, 
sighs, and at length, yielding to her conqueror, 
puts an end to her sorrow. 

Farther distant, were to be seen beauties, 
whom the crystal waves embraced, and dis- 
played their charms to the eyes of the heroes. 
Feigning terror, they fly ; the Lusitanians de- 
lighted, fly after them : they tremble with hope; 
they shake with desire. Pretending to yield 
herself up from fear, Cydippe, exposed to their 
view, rises from the wave : As a beauteous lily 
shines, sparkling with dew; as the smoothly 
shining marble of Paros, the dazzling nymph 
has charmed the heroes ; she falls, in her flight, 
into the arms of the handsome Mendoces. The 
fair Cymodoce, surprised at the bank of the 



DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. 207 

waters, blushes, weeps, is angry, and smiles at 
the same time. Galatea, who is followed into 
the wood by Velos, opposes him in vain by her 
cries, and her rebellious pride ; he seizes, con- 
quers her, and she, in consequence of her defeat, 
becomes more beautiful. Actea is still anxious 
to veil the palpitating ivory, and the double trea- 
sure of her lovely bosom ; while her charms are 
concealed under her long black hair. Arethusa, 
Opis, and Deliope, receive in the weods, the 
charming lessons of love. The groves, the grot- 
toes, the bushes, are all pouring forth sighs. 
Other nymphs plunge into the waters, and the 
intrusive looks of their admirers pierce even 
through the transparent veil ; while their desire, 
irritated by opposition, increases, and more than 
one Lusitanian, already plunged into the waves, 
follows by their liquid paths, as ihe voluptuous 
Triton pursues the Nereides. Every one swims 
towards the object with which his heart is de- 
lighted : As when the hunter, armed with the 
murderous musket, strikes the bird of the lake, 
his blood-hound, full of joy, seizes his prey. 

Leonardo, a victim devoted to the rigours of 
love, followed his mistress without any hope of 
return, although he expected ultimately to con- 



208 DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. 

quer his destiny : For now, the young Ephira, 
anxious to escape him, attracted him by the splen- 
dour of her fresh beauty. At length, fatigued 
with running, he exclaims, « O thou, whose 
cruelty so ill accords with thy celestial form, 
stop, and at least behold him whom thou de- 
testest! It is I, it is Leonardo, a submissive, 
trembling lover : thus, arresting the progress of 
his anxious flight, may injurious time never in- 
jure thy charms, and may thy eyes never be 
filled with the tears of love !" She now fled 
less swiftly, and anxious to be happy ; now his 
breath moistened her hair, his steps almost 
touched hers. Heaven ! Ephira undone ! Ephira 
at length stops. O unexpected delight ! He 
beholds her eyes, already filled with humid fires, 
fix their amorous azure upon his : he triumphs, 
and overcomes her divine reluctance. Upon the 
beauties which he beholds, upon those which 
he has in view for his audacious theft O de- 
lirium ! the lightning devours, and cuts the 

air with a less rapid flame : the happy couple 
roll themselves in torrents of love, and Venus, at 
length, wholly seizes her prey. But what other 
successes signalize this happy day ! Nothing, 
on every hand, was to be heard, but sighs of 
love. O what happy embraces, what enchant- 



DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. "209 

ing delights, did this wood conceal under its 
assisting shade ! What ardent kisses, what de- 
licious thefts, what cries, excited by modesty, 
ending in laughter! The tender Amazon ans 
unceasingly adorn the foreheads of their lovers 
with crowns, covered with gold, and flowers, and 
laurel, and myrtle, their warlike, amorous, and 
sea-beaten arms; unceasingly vow eternal ten- 
derness, and seal their promises with the most 
enchanting transports. 

The daughter of Vesta, of the ancient Calus, 
who delivers her supreme orders to the submis- 
sive waters, Tethys, the most beautiful of them 
all ; still fled. The more easily to overcome 
this rebellious nymph, Venus entangles her in a 
thicket : The chief of the Lusitanians, Vasco, 
perceives her : He throws himself at her feet. 
iC Where does thy presumption lead thee, O 
mortal !" cries Tethys. " Respect a goddess!" 
But in vain, do her eyes glance forth a fierce 
disdain ; Venus has lighted up a fire in her bo- 
som, and accompanies the discourse, and the 
engaging boldness of the hero, with a charming 
disorder, and a celestial grace. The nymph, 
yielding to the agitation of her heart, exclaims ; 
" Ah! leave me; be a generous conqueror: If 
p 



210 DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. 

some god, perceiving my danger, should reveal 
my weakness to the rest, never should I be able 
to support the affront; their taunting smile would 
cover me with shame." 

And now, to give confidence to the timid god- 
dess, Venus, unveiling herself, says, " Fear not 
thou either the sight of gods or men : the shade 
of these silent, mysterious groves shall cover 
thee with a deep, an impenetrable, veil : Phoebus, 
even Phoebus himself, shall be unable to pierce 
it." She now retires, and displays the long 
folds of her perfumed veil to the balm-breathing 
air ; her zone glances with dazzling fire, and 
beauteous Venus reveals herself by her de- 
meanour. 

Tethys opens her armsto her happy conqueror, 
and he triumphs. Immediately are perceived, 
all around, the myrtles, and lilac, and a thousand 
slender shoots, forming green colonnades, flower- 
ed tops, and brilliant arches; while Pomona, 
profuse with her gifts, pours forth from her urn 
its yellow treasures; and Flora carelessly scat- 
ters around the contents of her baskets ; the ivy, 
with a thousand arms, twines round the front of 
the arbours; and the vine, with its windings, 



>EHS 




Williams del. et Sadp ■ 



Venus unveiling herself, says, Fear not. 

p. 220 . 



DESCRIPTIONS 01< LOVE. 211 

hastens to embrace the oak: All unite, and branch 
mingles with branch ; the air is pure ; the bird 
sings under the foliage, and responses to the 
sound of the rivulets, and the zephyrs ; while, 
the earth, and the waters, the woods, and the 
air, congratulate Vasco by their gladdening 
concert. 

When, in obedience to Venus, the proud god- 
dess had at length yielded to the hero, he re- 
counted those exploits, and various successes, the 
fame of which had already rung through the 
whole world. He painted the fury of the Giant 
of the Tempests, and chiefly vaunted the con- 
quests of the great Alonzo ; and related, what 
vexations occurred to lessen his triumph, and 
wither his laurels. 

A youthful beauty, whose innocent charms 
had captivated the soul of the heir to the king- 
dom, was the object against whom his rage had 
been unjustly directed. Fortune cruelly per- 
secuted her, and only relented, when it was too 
late. When living, she was oppressed; when 
dead, they crowned her. 

*Twas thou, O cruel Love ! who causedst her 



21S DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. 

death ! What crime had the lovely innocent 
committed ? Had she set thy power supreme at 
defiance ? Alas ! in delivering up to thee, her 
heart, and her innocence, in tasting thy deceit- 
ful delights, ought she to have expired under thy 
oppressive stroke ? Thou, O Love ! liveston our 
torments, thou laughest at our fears ; thou takest 
delight in dipping thy arrows in our tears: But 
why shouldst thou also dip thy hands in murder, 
and defile thy altars with the blood of mortals? 

Thou, O beauteous Ines, livedst a happy and 
tender lover, tasting, in the midst of a sweet 
enthusiasm, that love, of which the deceiving 
presage often takes wings, and dissolves in a 
brilliant vapour ! Thou gatheredst the sweet fruit 
of thy youthful years. What nights succeeded 
to thy charming days! How often have the 
lovely sides of mount Dego seen thy beauteous 
face moistened with love ! How often hast thou 
repeated, to its delightful thickets, the name of 
the happy prince, who had irrevocably gained 

thy heart ! And he if he passed only one 

day without beholding thee, his delightful re- 
membrances, his sweet thoughts of love, crowd- 
ed into his softened soul ; he thought, that he 
every-where beheld his charming lovej that he 



DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. 213 

beheld the pure and vermilion shades of her 
countenance. He speaks to her, he hears her, 
and even in his sleep, dreaming, on his solitary 
bed, of his sweet kisses, he again enjoys them 
in imagination. In the day, he is seduced by 
some new charm : Does he behold a meadow, a 
rivulet, or a beautiful lake ? he believes himself 
in the places so dear to his remembrance. Does 
any other kind of happiness interest him? 
The Glory of Conquerors ? Thou art only a 
vain noise, a deceitful dream which love hath 
destroyed. His heart, at present enslaved, 
wishes for no other chains : vain would it be to 
talk to him of princesses and queens, for Ines 
has received his most tender vows ; while the 
borders of the mountain Dego are to him the 
whole universe. 

But they soon pass the happy days of life ! 
With what sorrows is their sweetness frequently 
followed ! And how much does pleasure darken 
the grief which succeeds ! 

Don 'Pedro, (so was this faithful lover called,) 
in vain cherished Ines. Alonzo, the king, is- 
sues an imperious order, commanding his son 
speedily to repair to the African confines: 



214 DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. 

the escort to conduct, is already prepared ; the 
sad lover groans, is agitated, and delays; Ines 
hides her eyes, bathed in tears, while he still 
gazes on her, and falls at her feet: He sigh;, he 
groans, and, in his deep agitation, he tries to col- 
lect the strength he still possesses; at length he 
snatches himself from her arms, and flies; she 
wishes to stop him; she flies after him; but the 
prince has already mounted the chariot; he de- 
parts, surrounded by his brilliant escort: Ines 
fills the air with a hundred vain lamentations: 
The prince is already far distant, and no longer 
hears her; she perceives the winding traces of 
the chariot, and hears its wheels rolling in their 
burning course, its rapid coursers lightly flying, 
and its sound gradually remove and die away. 
At length, losing sight of it, she rests motionless ; 
she feels an icy coldness at her weakened heart ; 
she falls; and the woman who follows her, re- 
ceives her into her arms, and conducts her to her 
humble abode. 

Not in vain did the unfortunate Ines tremble 
for her dreaded destiny. Alonzo had permitted 
the love of his son, in the hope of its being one 
day extinguished; but, beholding its duration, he 
remembers, that his crown demands an heir to 



DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. 215 

the throne. This weakness of his son is now, there- 
fore, nothing less than a crime against the king ; 
Ines must therefore perish the victim of the state. 
And behold this is a great and magnanimous 
king! This is the conqueror of many kings, 
under whom all Africa has often trembled ! 

No sooner had Don Pedro journeyed towards 
the African territory, and quitted the Lusitanian 
shore, than the enemies of Ines became triumph- 
ant. Already seized upon, and put in chains, 
along with her children, and pouring forth cries, 
heard in vain by her hardened conductors, she is 
dragged to the palace, she is at the feet of Alonzo, 

But scarcely had he seen her countenance, its 
paleness, her striking features, and their strong 
expression of grief, with her children, strong re- 
semblances of his son, full of charms, embracing 
his knees, and bathing them with tears, than he 
becomes agitated ; he hears nature raise within 
him a lamentable cry; he stifles it, and the cla- 
mours of a sanguinary people "efface the senti- 
ments of a father. But Ines — ah ! what is her 
fear at this moment? She does not tremble for 
the death that awaits her: but what will soon be 
the horrible solitude of the heart that places its 



216 DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. 

whole enjoyment in hers? Touched with her dis- 
tress, the ministers of death themselves groaned, 
and wept around her; the fury of her proud ene- 
mies sparkles. Ines lifted up her eyes to heaven, 
and these monsters — alas ! chains covered her fee- 
ble hands; and afterwards looking upon her chil- 
ren, the sight of whom plunges a poniard in her 
breast, ready to destroy her, her unhappy chil- 
dren, without support, and ready to fall the vic- 
tims of a too-rigorous fate, she, in her profound 
grief, pours forth loud cries, presses them in her 
arms, bathes them with her tears, and at length 
addresses their grand-father in these words: 

" As cruel animals, of old, have been seen to 
nourish children in the depth of their dens ; will 
you, who, if I may believe my eyes, are a man, 
a monarch, and a father, will you be more cruel, 
will you disdainfully push away those unhappy- 
children, embracing your knees? They are no 
more mine, when death separates us; they are 
your son's; they are yours, barbarian, youis, and 
you owe them your aflection and your aid. 1 
will not ask to preserve my life; bathe yourself, 
if it must be so, in the blood of a female, beloved 
by your son, and loving him in return: Strike — 
but my children! what crime have they commit- 



DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. 217 

ted? If, however, you who are the conqueror of 
our proud enemies, arm against them only your 
just vengeance ; if victory has not wholly extin- 
guished clemency in you, I will still venture to 
hope, not for myself, but for you, that, at beast, 
actuated by a regard for my husband, you will 
save me from an ignominious death. My spouse 
will either be destroyed by the stroke which 
kills me, or will pass his remaining days in sor- 
row. Suffer, that, far distant from you, and alas ! 
from him, I hasten to bury my inexpressible 
grief in those burning regions, at the farthest cor- 
ner of the world ; and let me obtain, from the 
monsters of the desert, that pity, which is no 
where else to be met with in the universe. 
There, dear and unhappy husband, my sons will 
display to me thy beloved features ! There, thy 
mournful wife will preserve for thee, this mourn- 
ful treasure, and will still be able to trace thee 
in their features!" 

At these words, Alonzo becomes disarmed; 
her tears have deeply alfected him; he wishes, 
but he dares not, to absolve her; he shudders at 
the thought of sacrificing her, and the words of 
pardon are ready to flow from his lips; but from 
this soft and pusillanimous pity, the cries of the 



218 DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. 

people snatch the victim. — The nobles, even the 
nobles, O detestable monsters! running with 
swords in their hands — Barbarians, stop ! tremble ! 
for tortures are preparing to punish you; this 
blood will fall upon your guilty heads! But it 
already springs forth ; it follows, in large streams, 
their cruel stabs, and stains that neck, the alabas- 
ter of which, till this moment, had never been 
reddened, but by the lips of an adoring lover ; 
and that beauteous breast, animated by love, 
that breast, the most perfect ever formed 
by nature. Villains ! behold now your infa- 
mous victory! A father, his children, a hus- 
band, and a wife, have ye assassinated. — O ven- 
geance! O fury! and thou, O Sun! thou who 
fallest back with horror, when thou beholdest the 
festival of the frightful Pelopides, behold Ines 
fall into the arms of her murderer, and embra- 
cing the knees of an assassinating monarch ! Be- 
hold, shudder, and retire! She dies, and her 
voice, and her lips, still murmur the sweet name 
of the prince, whom she adores : She dies, and 
her features, her discoloured countenance, her 
eyes, her forehead !— death has, at length, de- 
stroyed them all. 

As a flower of the field, by a virgin pulled, to 



DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. 219 

adorn, and encircle her forehead, charms the 
sight during the morning in vain ; for it soon 
fades, and a night terminates its beauty: So, this 
lovely form destroyed by death, loses the splen- 
dour with which, in the morning of its days, it 
had shone ; and, deprived of its colour, it breathes 
out, in one day, its perfume, its freshness, its life, 
and its love. 

The desolate nymphs of sad mount Dego, fill- 
ed the valleys with their mournful lamentations* 
and, to perpetuate the memory of their grief, 
converted their tears, in this place, to a fountain, 
and there engraved the mournful story of Ines. 
It forms a durable monument of their grief, and, 
rendered dear to the hearts of all the neighbour- 
ing shepherds, it is called, to this day, the Foun- 
tain of Love. 

At these mournful words, which the Poet, in 
tears, could with difficulty pronounce, his lyre 
fell from his hands. His auditors admired the 
art with which, in his song, he passed from the 
grave measure to the gay, from the dreadful to 
the melting; with which he formed those brilliant 
deceiving, pictures, at one time, filling them with 
voluptuousness; at another, displaying the mortal 
pangs of the soul. 



220 DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. 

But of all these rival poets, who is the con- 
queror? Is it Homer, whose genius revives, in 
his verses, the souls of Hector and Andromache? 
Is it Tasso, armed with an agreeable poison, the 
enchanting effects of which, overpower reason! 
Tasso, strewing round his brilliant magic? Is it 
Ariosto, who, in his manly energy, plunges from 
jealous rage, a poniard into the breast of a 
frank, loyal, and artless worthy? What shall I 
say of Milton? of Virgil? the one sublime in 
thought, the other in language ? The one seems 
rather to have painted the pure delights of hea- 
ven than of mortals; the other, while expressing 
the most ardent passion, seems to borrow from 
bell, the destruction of the soul. And, at length, 
Camoens, in dazzling verses, has painted the ar- 
dent pleasure, which devours the senses. What 
shall I say ? even after Virgil, he has drawn tears 
from eyes, moistened by his charming song. All 
of them, displaying the pleasures and the griefs 
of love, have plentifully shown the colours of 
the freshest pictures. Brilliant diadems, adorned 
with attributes of their various talents, were now 
distributed to all of them, in honour of their 
illustrious exertions. In the sublime verses of 
Homer and Milton, elevation and strength were 
chiefly admired : Virgil obtained the palm of 



DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. 221 

harmony. Of that pure and tender style, and 
those divine verses, which issue from the imagi- 
nations of profound writers, the brilliant Camo- 
ens, Ariosto, and Tasso, rival each other, in 
glory, freshness, and grace; and, having gathered 
the flowers of their rich fictions, partake the 
reward of their enchanting verses. And the 
Shades, pleased that Elysium had conferred upon 
these illustrious sages, this pleasing tribute of 
praise, at length separate, and collect in a hun- 
dred various groups, under their green sheds; 
there, eternal love, eternal youth, excite their 
happiness, and cause them for ever to smile. 

Thus did I, in the morning of my days, repeat 
the love songs of the most celebrated poets; 
while on the banks of the Nile, the hero of France 
destroyed the power of the haughty Mamelukes, 
humbled the pride of this conquered river, and, 
far distant, prepared to render himself immortal. 
What do I say? I myself joined his dangers, and 
am, in some degree, covered with his glory. He 
deigned to encourage me in my timid flight : I 
saw him applaud my feeble efforts. Alas' why 
does not my short-lived Muse offer another Ho- 
mer to this Achilles? I should sing his exploits, 
and, taking my flight... .Ah! let me fear the fate 



222 DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. 

of the fallen Icarus. Let some other celebrate, 
in strains which are worthy of them, the immor- 
tal exploits of Arcole and Lodi ! Let him ven- 
ture, in prophetic song, to sing the destruction of 
the Thames, and the freedom of the sea*! For 
my part, while celebrating, in unworthy strains, 
the hero, in whom victory delights, no sooner 
have I drawn a feeble sketch, than I hesitate, I 
am afraid, and I break my pencil. 

* This is, by no means, the proper place for a political 
discussion. But as the author has thought proper to in- 
troduce, in this passage, his French political views, the 
Translator begs leave also to mention his, which, though 
those of a Briton, are also, he trusts, those of an unbias- 
sed and ardent friend of the liberties and happiness of 
mankind. 

The French people, notwithstanding considerable faults 
in their national character, are brave, ingenious, active, 
industrious, high-spirited, liberal, kind, enlightened, be- 
nevolent, and generous. 

But the Tyrant, under whom this truly great people, 
at present, unwillingly groan, is, indeed, of a very differ- 
ent description. It is difficult to decide, whether his 
character, or his conduct, is the most detestable. He is 
restless, selfish, unfeeling, malevolent, cunning, — unex- 
ampledly impudent, rapaciously ambitious, and detesta- 
bly remorseless. Instead of being the benefactor ef a 
great portion of mankind, which he might bave been, and 
which he pretended, he wished to be, he has been, and, it 



DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. 223 

is to be feared, will yet be, the greatest destroyer of the 
happiness of the human race, that ever appeared on the face 
of the earth. Not only has he usurped a power, to which 
he had, and could have, no right ; not only has he mur- 
dered many individuals in cold blood* j not only has he 
destroyed thousands in his unprincipled wars • not only 
has he ruined his country, depriving it of peace, commerce, 
domestic happiness, and wealth ; not only has he kidnap- 
ped and dethroned princes, while he pretended to be their 
friends; not only has he waged open hostility with litera- 
ture, philosophy, and knowledge ; but he has enslaved 
millions of his fellow-men, has rooted out every vestige of 
freedom, and, as far as in his power, has enthralled the 
minds of the whole human race. 

If these facts be true, and that they are, no enlightened 
man can deny, the Emperor Napoleon Buonaparte is the 
greatest curse, that ever afflicted, for a season, the human 
race. Nero, though still more cruel, was less bloody. 
Julius Caesar, though equally a foe to liberty, was gene- 
rous, placable, and unassuming. Alexander, though as 
ambitious, and as successful, was less hypocritical, or in- 
solent, or malevolent. Mahomet murdered thousands, 
and cheated millions; but, villain as he was, he, at least, 
gave not his followers a worse government, and a worse 
religion, than those which they had before. Cromwell, 
though a usurper, delighted not in blood, never commit- 
ted murder, and always pursued, at least with respect to 
foreign powers, the real interests of his country. 

* For example, Captain Wright, Toussaint, Pichegru y 
Duke d'Enghien, Villeneuve, perhaps Bupont t and ( probably ,) 
Brune ! .' ! 



224 DESCRIPTIONS OF LOVE. 

But this man — O what a frightful, but instructive, page, 
will history display to enquiring posterity, of his wars, 
his battles, his conquests, his victories, his negociations, 
his intrigues, his talents, — his injustice, his pride, his im- 
pudence, his rapacity, his unfeelingness, his malignity, — 
and, above all, his demon-like hatred of the liberty of the 
subject, the freedom of the people, the progress of truth, 
the repose of nations, and the increase of knowledge! 
Happy are they, (are we,) who are far from the reach of 
such implacable tyranny ! 

War, except when in self-defence, or, assisting the op- 
pressed, is always murder. 

Every good man, therefore, instead of wishing this ex- 
traordinary warrior, but wicked individual, success in 
his unprincipled projects, will rather exclaim, "Glory 
blooms upon the olive! — I never see a laurel, but me- 
thinks, there's blood upon its leaf! — The laurel springs 
near the wolf: — The olive is a shelter for the lamb!" 



THE END. 



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